In the early stages of planning our trip, I stumbled upon a falconry that allowed you to handle birds of prey (falcons, hawks, wood eagle, ravens and owls). I knew we had to visit and so I booked an owl experience for Kevin and I. And what an experience it was! It just so happened to be at the castle we stayed at last night. We were able to hold two owls (Puck -Little Owl, Boomah -Tawney Owl) and fly two other owls (Bonnie -Barn Owl, Duke -Turkmanian Eagle Owl). We also met a few movie stars! Jake, the raven, and Eddie, the carrion crow, have been in countless films; they even have their own agent. The falconer said that the agent calls them all the time if they need a crow or raven to be charming and circle around a corpse or something. Kevin was in seventh heaven today, plain and simple. Since pictures are so much better for this particular adventure and we did take a lot of them, I’ll stop narrating now and you can see pictures below.
Next we decided to check out Crichton Castle on the way to Edinburgh which was listed on our Explorer Pass. The Explorer Pass gives us free admission to 79 different sites around Scotland for a nominal fee, so we bought it a couple of days ago. It’s already saved us a bunch of money, plus it has given us a bunch of new places to consider visiting. This was a neat little castle in the middle of nowhere that we were able to climb on and see another bit of history.
To finish the day, we checked into our new B&B in Edinburgh and ended up walking down to the Royal Botanical Gardens. Very, very pretty and only a five minute walk. We will definitely be going back later on this week to see the other half of it. It’s crazy how it is right inside the city but feels like we were walking out at Wildlife Prairie Park back home.
Our abode last night. Gorgeous, gorgeous grounds. On the way to the onsite falconry.
Meet Bonnie the Barn Owl. She typically doesn’t fly much back and forth between people, but we must have been special because she did great for us!
Apparently flying like this is beneath her, as she is the owl that typically delivers the wedding rings to people getting married at the castle. Basic flat rate of $8500 for a wedding here if you are interested… doesn’t include food, doesn’t include the reception hall, doesn’t include the owls delivering the rings… just to book the castle for the ceremony.
Meet Duke the Turkmanian Eagle Owl. He is HUGE! It was pretty intimidating having this big of an owl fly at you with a treat on your glove.
Here Duke is flying towards me. See how intimidating it would be?!
At the Royal Botanical Gardens. We only own rain coats. All my nicely picked out clothes are all for naught as we never take our jackets off and typically layer the rain jacket over it.
Also, I definitely understand the appeal of skinny jeans now. All of my pants are wayyy too long, and they just drag through the mud and rain and puddles. I never go anywhere without my pants rolled…
