Your browser version is outdated. We recommend that you update your browser to the latest version.

Vultures, Vampires and a Saint called Valentine.

 

 

Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin on this one.

I suppose it started back in February with a guy who I did not even know, clicking the “enter” button after placing an advert on the web.

But then again maybe it had started months before when I dropped food into my pair of Lanner Falcons in a seclusion aviary and only one of them made an appearance that day and came down and showed interest in the food. Seclusion aviaries are used for a pair of falcons or hawks to breed in. Leave them alone with peace and quiet hawks and these birds should, in theory, breed away to their hearts content. With a half open roof so they can watch and enjoy the season’s change, a covered area so they can enjoy their nest ledge away from the wind and rain, and a peep-hole so a human like me can keep a close eye if things went wrong.

But no matter how close an eye one can keep on birds, if one decides to pop its clogs and die of old age there is very little that can be done about it. And die he did, at the ripe old age of twenty three.

The advert read something like this; “Male Lanner Falcon for sale, three years old, would make good breeding prospect.”

Ok, fair enough, sounds just like what I am looking for, so I click on it and open up the advert to get the man’s number and low and behold if he isn’t selling a few birds. I rub my hands together as I reach for the phone.

“Sorry, but the Lanner is already sold.”

I listen as I see the breeding prospects plummet for another year.

“What are the other birds you have for sale?” I ask casually. My heart had already left my head to finish the conversation.........

 

Please follow this link to our new website to read this article; 

http://www.nationalbirdofpreycentre.ie/vultures-vampires-and-a-saint-called-valentine.html