The birds

We spend yesterday at a country sports fair in Moire, which is about an hour away from our cottages in Dundrum. In this case "sports" meant outdoorsy things like hunting and dog training. There was plenty to walk around and look at, and we were able to meet some members of the Ulster Scots, a local cultural organization that a few Young Ambassadors will be working with for their cultural placements.

We spend a good chunk of the first half of the day looking at a falconry group's bird display. They had owls and falcons and, to our surprise, an American bald eagle. If I remember correctly, you can't go anywhere near those birds in the U.S. and will go to jail for a very, very long time if you do. We thought looking at the birds would be the closest we would get to them for the day. I'm not a huge bird fan, so I was content with that.

But the birds had something else in mind when we were watching the handling demonstration later in the day.

At one point, the handler let one of the birds fly to the top of a flag pole behind where we were watching. It sat up there for a little while, until it was called back. But instead of going back to the handlers glove, it landed right on Tim's head as he was trying to take a photo with his cell phone. This, of course, meant he had to be one of the "volunteers" for the rest of the demonstration, although he didn't really have a choice in the matter.

What made this funny for those of us watching is that Tim hates birds. The handler then asked if there was anyone else in our group Tim wanted to have up there with him, so he made Ryan join him. Here they are looking apprehensive.

The handler then proceeded to tell them to "act like a tropical rain forest." This involved standing with their hands on their hips or heads while the falcon flew through the gaps. They performed a few of these tricks for the audience. But that was nothing compared to the finale of their little demonstration. The handler had them stand across from each other with their feet shoulder width apart, while the bird flew through their legs.

I took a bunch of photos at the fair, and have posted some to my Flickr page. There's a link on the left side of the blog to get there.