We learned how to fling it forward into flight and then take a chick's leg out of a shoulder bag and wait for it to come back for its snack. The chicks' legs felt a bit spooky when you rummaged in the bag, but I thought I would be brave and just get on with it. At the end, the hawk's treat was to have a full baby chick to eat. As the tutor flipped the whole chick casually onto my gauntlet I had to look away, like I was having an injection. I could hear rather gruesome tearing noises as the hawk tucked in, and saw the faces of those watching contort in disgust. When I was fairly sure he had finished, I looked round to see some chick gore had splashed onto my mac - I was reminded, momentarily, of Jackie Kennedy with the brains of her husband splattered over her Chanel suit.
Moving swiftly on, I also flew a very large and exotic owl, who looked extremely fluffy and appealing, and a pale barn owl - I had never noticed how wonderful the freckled pattern across their wings was until I saw it at full stretch in flight. The vultures were unexpectedly very appealing and wore an ernest expression coming towards you, landing with a hefty 'plonk' on the glove.
My all time favourite, though, has to be the bizarre Secretary Bird. This spindly, awkward creature has very long eye lashes, clown-style orange painted face, frilly crown of feathers sticking up on its head, and the thinnest legs I've ever seen. Down to the knees it has black feathers that look like it's wearing knickerbockers. When it runs it scampers along flicking its legs forward in a brisk, elongated goose step. It was such a fragile looking thing it was a bit of a surprise to find out it killed snakes by kicking them. It must pack quite a punch in those thin pins. The one we met was quite tame and kept bumping into the keeper when she turned around.
It was tall, it was clumsy, it looked funny and it ran funny - you couldn't help but fall in love.
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