Meet Beth and Benjamin

It's not every day that a person gets to say they spent two weeks taking care of baby barn owls. But thanks to a very kind donor at St. John's College and a very trusting raptor trainer at Eagles Flying, I got to do just that. I had barely stepped out of the car into the pigeon- and peacock-filled yard of the centre when Lothar told me, "I think you're going to take care of the barn owls." I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "Okay!" Though barn owls weren't my favorite of the raptor world, I wasn't going to turn down an assignment like that.

It was the end of the first day, a bit misty, getting dark. I went out into the barn owl aviary which was home to two adult barn owls and the two "baby" barn owls (I say "baby" because, though they're young, they had all of their adult feathers so didn't really look like fledgling owls). The two as yet unnamed babies were smushed inside a little alcove in the wall, and stared at me suspiciously when I came in. 

I was prepared, though. I had my awesome leather satchel filled with chick meat cut up in bite-sized pieces. I lifted my left hand to them, holding a piece of food, wiggled the fingers of my right hand on top of my left fist (owls have bad eyesight close up and this helps them locate the food), and whistled. They just stared. I did it again. They stared. I did it again. And again. And again. At some point one of them (later to be named "Beth") flew to me once, maybe twice. It was an accomplishment. I chased them around a bit and then brought them into the house. That was Day #1. 

Despite some protests from my housemates, I ended up naming the two Beth and Benjamin. I have no idea if they were male or female, but the names ended up sticking. Beth was the more active flyer, more eager, but more easily distracted. If she flew to my hand and got a chick head, she'd fly to the ground and then proceed to play with it, ignoring me no matter how many times I called to her. Benjamin didn't fly to me as often, but he was much better at stepping up to and down from my hand. Neither of them appreciated when I came to get them in the morning. They would sit on top of their birdcage, just out of my reach. Or, even worse, they'd hang out on top of the bookcase and I would chase them around the various sculptures precariously placed along the surface. Good thing most of them were made out of wood since I or the owls must have knocked them over at least once a day. 

Over the course of two weeks I saw incredible progress. Every morning I retrieved them from the house and released them into their outdoor aviary. Every evening I flight trained them to fly to my hand for food, then brought them back into the house. By the end of the two weeks they would call to me for food as soon as I came walking up the hill. They would fly to me regularly across the entire expanse of their aviary. They would sit on my shoulder and chirp in my ear. They would let me rub the backs of their necks and stroke their feathers. 

Leaving them was really difficult. I wish I could have brought them back to SANC with me, but sadly we can't have non-native raptors in our program. I recently found out that one was sold, probably to the Dublin Zoo. It would be amazing if I ever got to visit and see little Beth or Ben all grown up.

It wasn't a long time, but two weeks was enough for me to bond with these gorgeous, hilarious fluffballs. I will always remember the time they were both so excited to fly to me that they collided in mid-air. Yes. That happened. I will always remember Beth sitting on my shoulder, snuggled in my scarf and my hair. I will always remember holding both owls on one hand, them leaning on each other for support as I hiked through the woods, their little talons wrapped around my finger. Barn owls were never my favorite, but after meeting these two, I'm completely sold. How could I not be?

Welcome...to Jurassic Park (Well, not quite, but there are raptors!)

Whoa. Okay, do we want to even bother talking about how long it's been since I blogged? Maybe I'll just give you a quick summary excuse for my business: horseback riding, dance lessons, two essays a week, SBR committee, producing two plays, reading endless amounts of Greek tragedy, fancy dinner parties, practical criticism, lots of lectures...shall I go on? No, I don't think I shall. 

Let's move on. Let's talk about Eagles Flying. What IS Eagles Flying you ask? It's the Irish Raptor Research Centre located in Country Sligo, Ireland. Thanks to a magnificent St. John's College travel grant I got to go there and do a two-week internship working with lots of animals, most of which were raptors. I'm planning on having three or four blog posts detailing all the fun stuff I did while there, but this first post will be a introduction to life at Eagles Flying.

Let's jump right in!

I arrived in Ireland on September 6th. It was raining. Or, at least I think it was. It probably was. Anyway, I arrived at the centre smack dab in the middle of their work day. I only realized what bad timing this was AFTER I had worked there a few days. I spent most of Day 1 standing around like an idiot asking people to give me jobs so I didn't look useless. Thankfully that useless stage didn't last long and I got LOTS of jobs to do. My day usually broke down as such:

MORNING (wake up at 6:30am): clean three top mews (pheasants, barn owls, long-eared owls), feed pheasants, transfer barn owls from house to mew, bring show birds out to their weathering area, clean show bird birdhouse during first flight show.

LUNCHTIME!: eat SAME EXACT SANDWICH every day for two weeks (mayo, ham, cheese, tomato...in case you were wondering), drink lots of tea, occasionally watch short documentary on sea eagles.

AFTERNOON: clean barn mews (goshawk/buzzard and lanner falcons), clean eagle owl mew, clean sea eagle mews, wash dishes, occasionally clean gannets or ferrets, help out in the petting zoo (play with mice, pester the mink, attempt to teach the African Gray how to say "apple", sweep A LOT).

EVENING: prep food, wash more stuff, wash EVEN MORE stuff, bring birds inside, fly Harris' hawk, flight train baby barn owls, chick count for food, wash perches and fill water bowls, occasionally wrangle chickens.

NIGHT (home at 9:00pm): go home, occasionally CYCLE home (only occasionally, thank the Lord), put on PJs, eat dinner, check email, chat with housemates, occasional dance party, write in journal, go to bed.

And that, ladies and gents, was my day, everyday. It got a bit Twilight Zone-ish when I'd wake up and go to work and do THE SAME EXACT tasks I did the day before and then I would have this weird feeling that time never passed and I was stuck in some awful hell where I just had to keep cleaning the same owl cage over and over again, but it never actually got clean. Thankfully that feeling usually passed by 10:00am when I'd fully woken up. 

But let's talk about topics that are a bit more fun. First, let's meet all the awesome people I got to work with. Here are the folks that run Eagles Flying, the lifeblood that keep the place alive:

First up: Lothar and Regina, the husband and wife team that own and run the centre. They came to Ireland to retire. Clearly that didn't work out.

Next are the hired hands, Sketch and Joe. I have very fond memories of them making fun of me 24/7. I also have a fond memories of the three of us (plus a doberman and a vulture) attempting to chase a chicken into a barn stall. This has been caught on video if I ever need to blackmail them.

These two were my housemates, Per and Renee. They are absolutely hysterical and amazing people who somehow put up with my incessant rambling and complete inability to cycle uphill. We lived a lovely two weeks together in a little house in the middle of the Irish nowhere countryside. Renee made the fire and, often, dinner. Per made lots of Viking references. Lots of time was spent in our underwear. There was a dance party once, I think. Maybe it was just Renee dancing. Per taught us how to sword fight. I introduced them to sweet potatoes. It was a lovely relationship.

Obviously I loved working with the people at Eagles Flying, but the centre wouldn't be what it was without the animals. I'll have more detailed blog posts about some of my work with specific birds, but here's a little introduction to the furred and feathered creatures that call Eagles Flying home.

Puppies Galore!

I have never been around so many dogs in my life. The centre had ten dogs, three adult German shepherds named Rob, Bella, and Seamus, one adult doberman named Tariq, and six puppies named (let's see if I can remember!) Ozzy, Bubbles, Lucy, Erik, Robson, and...crap. Oh well. The ones you need to know are Lucy and Erik because I wanted so desperately to take them home with me. Both were white/sable puppies and they were gorgeous! Erik walked with a limp which made him even more precious in my eyes. All of the puppies were super rambunctious and got into so much trouble! A favorite memory: Robson knocking my entire container of pheasant food all over the grass, forcing me to pick up lots of itty bitty grains by hand. Guess that's what I get for leaving a very exciting tin can balancing on a fence at puppy height.

A Random Assortment of Critters

Eagles Flying is a rehab centre as well as being home to permanent residents. It has a cute petting zoo in conjunction to its raptor show, and I spent quite a lot of time in the Hall (as the barn was called) doing bits of cleaning, entertaining guests, and hanging out with the animals. The centre also had a ton of animals just wandering around: geese and chickens, horses, sheep, donkeys. It was pretty cool, except when you had to keep peacocks from coming into the bathroom with you. Or when you had to try to catch a chicken (yes, I'm mentioning THAT again). Here are my favorites of some of the non-raptors:

Black Horse: gorgeous and mysterious; he wandered on the outskirts of the centre, and just once he let me come up and touch him.

Gannets: Jannet and Plannet; got to hand-feed them and they swallowed massive fish whole, which is a sight to see. Otherwise they usually just stared at me in a hilariously disapproving manner.

Grizzly: a raccoon, which apparently is a really exciting animal to see in Ireland. She's been trained to "pick-pocket" guests, which was so much fun. Put a little cat food in your pocket and Grizzly will find it in a an instant!

Lady Amherst Pheasants: really pretty, make the cutest noises. Were really scared of me at first, but after two weeks of me cleaning their cage, they finally came up to me and would eat grain out of my hand.

The Wiggles: the collective name for the ferrets. I don't think they had individual names, or if they did, I certainly didn't know them. The one time I went in their cage to clean it, they came running out and spent the whole time scampering between my feet and investigating all of my cleaning supplies. A good five minutes were spent crawling around inside an empty bucket. Quite adorable, if you ask me.

And Finally...the Raptors!

The centre is home to over 100 raptors who are permanent residents. The centre takes in injured birds, releases those it can, keeps those it can't. It also breeds raptors, keeping some and selling others. There were so many raptors to keep track of that I actually didn't even get to see a bunch of them. There were so many hidden mews that I didn't even know were there until someone pointed them out. Sneaky birds. While there are too may raptors to list here, let me mention the ones I particularly worked with and/or bonded with the most.

Leilah: a saker falcon, one of the star flyers in the raptor show. I'll talk more about that later, but she was just incredible to watch. She was also such a gentle bird and I often handled her without a glove (despite what you see in the photo...first day...was still using my glove security blanket!).

Sabhdh: (pronounced "Sive" or "Sife"...don't really know which with everyone's accents) a female Harris' hawk. I spent most evenings free-flying her across the fields. There's really nothing more breath-taking than standing in the mist in a gorgeous green field in Ireland, watching a hawk soar across to you and land on your bare arm!. People pay incredible amounts of money for that experience. And I was being paid to do it. (Though I was paying for it, in a way. The majority of the fine white scars on my arm are from those beastly talons!)

Kahn: a male steppe eagle that I had the great pleasure of hand-feeding every evening. I would hold my glove to him, say "Up!" and then once he was sitting on my glove I'd let him eat the chick I was holding. I would always attempt to avoid the yolk squirting in my face. I was only successful half of the time. Kahn was a hilarious character. With a head disproportionately smaller than his body, and with his chest puffed out, he was a bit comical for his name. But he was always a gentle giant and I loved working with him.

Aisling and Lorcan: sister and brother Eurasian Eagle Owls. Both were magnificent flyers for the show. Aisling was the largest owl I've ever seen, and the heaviest I've ever held. Both looked and sounded like surly cats.

Nujo: a rascal of a kestrel that bit me so hard my entire finger swelled up to the point where I couldn't even bend it. Other than one time, he was usually a very nice bird. 

Sheikh: a male saker falcon who once had been an extraordinary flyer but a bout with cancer put an end to that. His name is pronounced "Shake", which probably refers to the slight trembling that comes over him often. He was gorgeous bird and he would always sit so nicely on my hand.

Kelley: the first eagle I ever held, a tawny eagle who spent most of her time hunched over making a warning call that sounds a bit like "nyuck!" Still, a really stunning bird to see, especially when she was showing off during the raptor show.

And that, my friends, a very brief (that is, long) introduction to the centre and it's inhabitants. If you actually read top to bottom this whole post, then a massive thank you! The only way I could be happier is if you a.) left a comment and/or b.) signed up to follow my blog. 

I've got two more exciting posts on Eagles Flying. They will be focused on 1.) the workings of the show, with some great photos of the birds flying, and 2.) my time spent with Beth and Benjamin, the two "baby" barn owls I helped train. If you're as much of a bird nerd as I am then you'll really like what's coming next!

GEA Part 4: Florence

Ah, my dear reader, it seems we've come to the last leg of my Grand European Adventure. Part 4 has arrived, and our journey from Rome took us to Florence next. But let's not jump right away into that lovely city because I have one heck of a crazy story before that.

I've been telling you all about these exciting places I've visited, but haven't focused much on how I got from one to the other. Mostly I skipped that stuff because it's boring. This, however, is a bit more amusing.

We arrived at the massive train station in Rome. We went to a teller, but the machine told us we didn't need tickets, that our confirmation number was enough. Then we found our train on a board and sat down to wait. That's when when I randomly bumped into a guy I knew from St. John's. He then informed us that the board we were looking at was the Arrivals board. Sometimes I, too, wonder how I got into Cambridge. We then found the Departures board and waited for our platform number to show up. Now, this train station is huge. And we had no idea if our train was directly in front of us, or two miles on the opposite side of the station. Thankfully our train was close-by and we got to our platform. Unfortunately, a snotty little Italian boy was also close-by. I had been warned about kids like him who want to do you favors and then demand money. So when he offered to carry my bag onto the train, I refused and brushed past him. C and A didn't manage to save their bags from his grasp. Despite their loud protests, he snatched the bags from them and hauled them onboard. And then he had the audacity to rub his fingers together, asking for cash. Ha! I think not! I told him we had no cash on us (actually the truth) and when he didn't buy it I politely told him we hadn't asked for his services anyway and if he was smart he'd kindly leave. I'm not a mean person at all, but situations like this drive me up the wall. 

We settled into our trip in a lovely private carriage complete with air conditioning. THAT didn't last long. Shortly into our journey the lights flickered on and off and the air conditioning went kaput. We also realized we were making quite a few stops. The ride was supposed to be a little over an hour long, and didn't take us much longer than that to realize something wasn't quite right. One hour passed. Two hours. No maps. No conductors came by. Three hours. No air conditioning. No windows that would open. Finally a conductor came by asking for tickets. Of course, as the teller told us, we only had our number. The man did not seem pleased about this and started jabbering at us in Italian. When we told him we don't speak Italian, he just huffed and left us. Okay... Then the lights went off in the whole carriage. And then we went into a tunnel. That lasted a good five minutes. That might not seem a long time to you, but think about it. A tunnel. For FIVE MINUTES. In complete, utter darkness. I just thought to myself, we HAVE GOT to be in the Twilight Zone or something. Where on earth are we going? We didn't even know if we were heading the right direction! 

Somehow, SOMEHOW, four hours later we arrived in Florence, pissed off, hot, freaked out. And we found out that we had taken a local train that made stops in about 30 different small towns. This local train left about 4 minutes before the train we were SUPPOSED to get on that would have gotten us to Florence in less than 2 hours. We were so fed up with transportation that we got a cab instead of walking and went on the most terrifying cab ride of our lives. Our cab driver seemed to like going 70mph down really narrow, windy Italian streets. Oh dear. We survived, though, and managed to get to our hotel, despite the fact that we had to go up one incredibly small elevator and through three sets of locked doors to get into our room. We were greeted by two small beds and quite a few paintings of naked women. Oh, whatever. We immediately destroyed the room by throwing our stuff everywhere, and collapsed on the bed, exhausted.

We decided that despite how much our bones ached and our brains hurt, we were only in Florence a short time and needed to get out and about. We left our hotel and wandered the nearby streets. We were in a super cute district, right on the river. The bridge was full of fancy jewelry shops, and the streets were packed with tourist shops, little stalls selling trinkets, and the like. Of course, we had to welcome ourselves into the city with some gelato. After that we went to a small market and did a bit of shopping amongst the stands selling leather purses, masks, bracelets, and scarves. We also ran into a random boar statue. "Let's touch it!" A said. "It's lucky!" Not quite sure about that, but it was becoming A's catchphrase for the trip ("Look at this door, it's famous!" was probably the culminating quote of our whole adventure). 

Since we got to Florence later than expected, it wasn't long before we were starving. We decided to have dinner at Quattro Leoni, a restaurant highly recommended by two friends. We were not disappointed. We ordered a delicious bottle of white wine that was served to us in massive wine glasses. I felt very fancy and bit crazy. We had lovely, simple food that really tasted homemade. It hit the spot. After the stress of the day, the heat of Rome, and the general exhaustion from our travels, it was really nice just sitting outside of a little restaurant in Florence, eating good food with good friends.

Post-dinner we wandered back up the bridge and tried taking some nice group shots by the sunset. However, it was incredibly windy and the sunlight made terrible streaks on our faces. Thanks, nature, ruining another picture. But we made up for it by buying our first authentic Italian cannoli. I don't want to brag or anything, but I definitely think the ones my family makes are better. Just sayin'. The sugar rush kind of woke us up, though, and I convinced A to climb on top of the wardrobe (this is not unlike the time in Edinburgh I fed A a lot of gummy candy and convinced her to climb out of the skylight...I see a trend here...). Then I had to help her down. We're easily amused.

Then, because we were really on a roll of acting like weirdos, we wandered around our hotel taking fabulous photos of ourselves being fabulous.

Being so utterly fabulous really exhausted us, so we went to bed. The next morning we enjoyed a hearty continental breakfast before going out to explore the city. The first major sight we saw was the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as the Duomo. It's located in the middle of a huge piazza, and it's absolutely stunning. The colors, coral and mint green, really emphasized Florence's sun and water motif. The statues were exquisite; it really blows my mind that someone could carve something so detailed and perfect, and on such a huge scale. It was here we saw A's "famous" door. How exciting! We also got to see the statue of Dante Alighieri located in the Piazza di Santa Croce. I think he and I could have been amazing friends since we both like to pose epically with eagles.

Our main objective for the day was going to see Michelangelo's David in the Accademia Gallery. Originally the statue was located outside the Palazzo della Signoria, but now a replica is there. We waited in what seemed to be a short line for a million years in the sweltering sun. Turns out they only let a certain amount of people in the gallery at a time to keep it from getting congested. Good idea, I suppose, but not fun when you have to wait outside. Still, it was worth it. David is quite an impressive statue, situated in the middle of the main room with a huge domed ceiling looming over him. You wander through some smaller galleries first, then BAM!, you walk into a huge, open room and there he is. Not a bad entrance, Davey. Unfortunately photography isn't allowed, and after being chastised in the Sistene Chapel, I didn't sneak a photo. Instead I got a picture of the fake, colorful David.

I probably don't need to tell you, but Florence is an incredibly gorgeous city. It's clean, it's cozy, it's calm. The hectic pace and grunginess Rome exuded was absent here. We wandered down lovely side streets and admired the stone buildings. We explored huge plazas and the extraordinary amount of statues they had on display (I even got a photo of the replica of the Rape of the Sabine Women). And though it was warm outside, like in Rome, it wasn't humid, and the sunshine felt marvelous.

For our last night in Italy, we wanted something really delicious for dinner. We considered going to the Quattro Leoni again, but felt we should try something different. Thanks to Google Search, we brought up a list of the best pizza places in Florence, and we chose one: Gusto Pizza. The shop was small and packed; that seemed to be a good sign. We each ordered our own pizza and went to sit outside of the Pitti Palace to eat. Oh. My. Goodness. Yes. Google does not lie. That pizza was incredible. Fresh. Warm. Gooey. Simply divine. I scarfed down the entire thing, and so did C and A. 

We were so thrilled with our find that we celebrated the rest of the night with a bottle of delicious champagne and a few rounds of Scopa. The champagne was fun even before we drank any of it. I volunteered to be the one to open it since I had opened bottles before, and knew it took a bit of wiggling and working to get the cork out. We joked about not aiming at people or breakables, but when I just barely touched the cork, POP!, it came flying out and went straight for the mirror. We all screamed bloody murder. I think I may have stumbled backwards into the bed. That is, before I booked it to the bathroom because champagne was spilling everywhere. Can't you tell I'm an expert at these things?

The next morning was the day we were set to leave Italy and head back to jolly ol' England. We didn't have anything much planned, so we wandered the city one last time and took in the sights. We certainly did not have enough time in Florence. It was so peaceful and beautiful, I know none of us wanted to leave. 

And then, as soon as we arrived, we left. Another (thankfully shorter) train, a plane ride, and back to England. Though we were sad to go, it had been a grand adventure, all right. Florence was the icing on the cake.