Meet our Owls
Pippin
Great Grey Owl
Pippin is one of the sweetest owls you could wish for, and when he flys his leg display is quite amazing. “River dance on wings” we call it. He was hand-reared at the same time as our snowy owl and the two of them made quite a duet, all day. It was impossible to watch a documentary over the noise the two of them were making, luckily, it turns out you don’t need to hear any actual words in Mission Impossible. He also experienced the motherly love of our dog, as she was apparently convinced that his cheeping was a sign of distress rather than content.
Chuzzlewit
Barn Owl
Chuzzlewit was hand-reared and while he was growing up, watched Harry Potter, he probably wonders why Hedwig doesn’t come to visit him now he’s outside in an aviary. He’s seen almost everything in his life, including a zombie invasion of the village green, which he was remarkably unruffled about, and a beautifully decorated wedding reception, though he was sorely disappointed to discover that the paper chains did not make good perches.
Moriarty
Snowy Owl
Built for the cold, we don’t make him fly in any summer owl experience, as, being an arctic owl, he doesn’t appreciate English summers. Before we came up with a good name for him, Moriarty was referred to as ‘the Banshee’, after his wailing cry. He is the greediest of our owls and particularly loves to chase his pretend rabbit, which he is always very proud of himself to have caught.
Rolo
Barn Owl
Rolo and his brother (below) are the only two of our owls that we did not hand-rear ourselves and came to us at a year old. Of all our barn owls, he is the one we use most often in our 45 minute barn owl experience. He has a particular fondness for our roof and in the early stages of training, refused to sit on a perch and insisted instead on doing all of his flying up and down from the roof, this has since come in handy, as whenever he gets lost, he can see the roof from far away and just comes back to sit on it.
Twix
Barn Owl
Like his brother named after chocolate sweets. Twix also came to us at a year old and was a challenge to train, as he didn’t understand why he suddenly had to work for a living, he was personally very happy to go without any real excercise for the rest of his life. We have now taught him to find a clicker by sound, which, if he is in the mood, he will do on an owl experience. He is quite used to dogs, and, indeed, thinks ours are on the small side, as there was a great dane in the house where he grew up.
Arka
Bengal eagle-owl
She is one of the oldest of our owls and also one of the most reliable, any owl experience that we use her in we are 96% certain she will be the best flyer. She grew up in our living room and, because we wanted her to hear the sound of human voices so she’d get used it, we tuned the TV in to a channel with pretty much wall-to-wall Top Gear, presumably, she is still under the impression that Jeremy Clarkson is her dad. She is a favourite among our staff, even though she does have a habit of biting and tugging at hair.
Bamu
Africian Spotted eagle-owl
He is very easily distracted and loves watching planes, he has even been known to fall over backwards as planes go over his head, this wouldn’t be such a problem if he didn’t live under the Gatwick flight path. He is the naughtiest of our owls and will consider flying if there’s nothing more interesting going on elsewhere, still, we can’t complain, because the one day he did decide he was going to do everything he was asked to, he did it at the O2 in London, where none of our other birds of prey were at all inclined to do anything because of the life-size, roaring dinosaurs that were peering over at them, though that was probably because he couldn’t see planes.