Sabbatikos

After Tawny and Clara’s morning horseback ride, and my morning river walk, we drove to the Hawkeye School of Falconry at Lyrath Estate near Kilkenny, not far from Mount Juliet Estate. We had a full-day drive ahead of us. Our destination was Kenmare, where we’d spend the night before driving the scenic Ring of Kerry. But that’s another blog post. First we had a private lesson to learn about falconry and try our (leather-gloved) hand at the sport of kings.

Our lesson began with an introduction to Maggie, a demure and diminutive northern white faced owl who loves to indulge in a good selfie.

Next, our instructor retrieved one of the Harris’s Hawks we’d be training with. She allows the hawks choose the trainee group by parading us in front of the aviary and seeing which hawk seems most interested in going for a flight lesson. Today, handsome Reggie picked us.

We headed to a broad open field where we’d be flying Reggie today. We learned how to send Reggie to the tree-tops, where he’d disappear into the foliage and we’d lose sight of him. Then, with just a small piece of meat placed upon our gloved hand, Reggie would magically and majestically swoop in and quickly land upon your hand with the meat firmly in his beak. It was absolutely exhilarating and a thrill to be so up-close and personal with such a magnificent creature.

Each of us got several turns with him.

We even got to see Reggie perform some tricks, and some arial acrobatics picking pieces of meat thrown mid-air.

If you ever get a chance to do falconry for a day, I highly recommend the experience, no matter where in the world you might be. But if you happen to be in or near Kilkenny, I’d suggest you take your lesson at the Hawkeye School of Falconry. The faculty, the setting, the birds they have, it was a magical experience we’ll never forget.