Guide to luxury Adare Manor, eagle owls, kestrels, swooping falcons and more

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• published: 19 Sep 2013
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http://yourirelandhotels.com Video guide to the Falconry at the fabulous 5 star luxury Adare Manor hotel in County Limerick. Adare Manor is one of Ireland's top 5 star hotels. You can try lots of different things here from golf to archery and even falconry, which is what we are going to be trying today. And so what do you do here We're over the falconry and the archery. So what we do is we'd normally bring down our birds. We'd set them up over here on the green. And we've a beautiful set of birds there. We've lots of owls. We've got some Harris Hawks. We've got a couple of falcons. And what we would do then is we would walk through all the birds with the guests. And each of the birds, they're all very suitable to hold them. We pop them up onto peoples hands and they can take as many photographs as they like. And I'll tell you a bit about the birds as well. Oh yeah. Great. They all have their own characters. And they're all very very individual. Andwhat we would do then is when we're finished going through all the birds is we actually have to pack away some of the smaller fellas. The fella we're going flying is the Harris hawk. The Harris hawk are by nature predators. So he'd actually attack some of the smaller guys. So we don't want that to happen. No, the kinds wouldn't want that to happen. No, no, no, no. The kids wouldn't like that. I wouldn't like that either though. Yeah, we go flying the Harris hawks then and that's when the excitement really comes in. Seeing those guys flying is absolutely fantastic. People just go wild for it This little guy here. His name is Felix. Felix is a Harris hawk. So is he going to fly for us. Yeah, this guy will fly. I can fly him right now if you'd like me to Yeah, that'd be great. I'll step away then No, you're okay there. You ready buddy? Felix flies, swoops and lands. Very good Aaaaah, laughter. That was terrifying We do this every day with Felix. He's an excellent flyer. He absolutely loves it and the guests go wild for it. They love seeing him in the sky flying. He is just fantastic. If you listen to me. What I'll do is stand behind you. I'll put the food into my hand and hold it over your head so that when the bird comes down, it'll rise up over your face. Do you want to give that a go? That sounds horrible. No. There's one way to find out. Trust me Grainne. I've done this a thousand times All right. So what do I have to do. Just not move. I think I'm going to close my eyes You turn around towards the wall here. Are you ready? You've got to keep your eyes open now, okay? You ready? Cue music and Felix swoops over Grainne's head. Am, Ooh. So we're here with Oscar. Oscar, the eagle owl. So he's an eagle owl. What does that mean? Is he like a cross between an eagle and an owl? Oh, no, no. Not at all. He's all owl. Believe me. The eagle, I mean, he's very very strong. These guys are apex predators. There's nothing about them that's eagle. He is all owl. And they're actually the biggest type of owl in the world. Now this guy here. He wouldn't be the biggest eagle owl around. The females again would be a little bit bigger, a little bit bulkier. And when I say a little bit, I mean considerably. So how heavy is he. He feels pretty heavy. At the moment, he's probably almost six pounds in weight. Wow, like a baby Yeah, a big baby, a powerful baby Females are bigger. They are stronger so they can hunt bigger things. I mean this guy here now. He will take pretty much anything. He could take a dog, a rabbit or a cat or a fox. But females have been known to go for things like goats and sheep and small deer. Wow And what they would do there is they land the talons up on the head. And they crush it. And they actually penetrate the brain with the talons and it causes an instant kill. Wow, so do you tell kids this when they come out Oh yeah, yeah. We tell everyone They love that I suppose Its nature. It's the way it is. They come here. They want to know about the birds. So we tell them the facts. We tell them the truth about it. Yeah. Its very interesting.