Blog

From all at SMJ Falconry we hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and that 2017 brings you everything you hope for!

Unfortunately for the avian world, bird flu is back in the country again. Which causes us a few problems due to restrictions for all birds being in place currently. Details of the current outbreak can be found on DEFRA's website here: DEFRA Avian Influenza

Due to this we are currently making all experience day vouchers valid until February 2018!

On reflection of 2016 it has been a busy year with lots of new shows and events filling our diary!

2017 is looking great also, we have new dates for all of our Photography Workshops which can be booked via Tony and Carol Dilger or Paul Miguel. You can also see us at some new shows in 2017, more details to follow in our next blog post!

We've also had a few new additions to our team, Luke a Gyr x Red Nape Shaheen (peregrine), Fandango a Gyr x Peregrine, Eddie a Merlin, Peter a male Harris Hawk and a new female Harris Hawk who has recently arrived here and needs a name! Please take a look at our FaceBook page to vote for a name!

We hope you have a fantastic New Year and we will see you in 2017!

Its been a while since I've made a blog post, I am sorry its taken me so long to write!

We've had a very busy year this year! I became a dad on the 7th of April this year (54 minutes before my birthday on the 8th!) Since then we have been busy with lots of flying displays, experiences, and lots of pest control over the summer.

As of tomorrow we finish our flying displays with the Royal Armouries, which we were attending every Tuesday throughout the school summer holidays. We would like to thank all of the staff at the Royal Armouries for making us feel so welcome. The Armouries have brilliant facilities to house the birds (and us falconers!) and it has been a pleasure to be part of their summer schedule.

We have a few more shows lined up this year, we will be at Cannon Hall Farm on the 10th and 11th of September, so please do come and see us at the farm and enjoy a lovely family day out!

Our hunting days also start from the 10th of September, we are already booked up for every weekend in September! Our hunting days run until the end of Febuary, so if you are interested please visit our Hunting Days page for more information.

Thank you for taking the time to read our Blog! If you'd like to hear more from us please find us on social media!

Easter is fast approaching and we have a list of shows to tell you about!

We will be back at Cannon Hall Farm from Thursday 24th March until Monday 28th March.

We are back doing a flying display once a day (weather permitting), come and see us and the amazing new facilities they have built!

We have also been booked to do shows at the Royal Armouries! This is a new event and something we are really excited about! We will be there every Tuesday and Thursday from the 29th of March, our last date here will be Thursday 14th of April. We are doing 2 shows a day, 11am and 2.30pm.

These are just our Easter dates and we have much more booked for the start of Summer, check back for more dates for the Summer!

I am also expecting a new arrival this Spring! My first baby!! He is due to arrive early April so lots going on at SMJ Falconry this Easter!!

The weather here hasn't been great this winter! Rain... wind more rain and this morning 3 inches of snow! Bring on the warmer weather!

Season's greetings to all from everyone at SMJ Falconry. We hope you all have a wonderingful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We have had a busy year this year, with Sandra having to go into hospital over the summer it left Chris rushing around the country doing lots of flying displays. We have already had a few displays booked for the 2016 season and we hope to have a list of dates and locations coming in the new year so keep checking back for updates!

We also hope to bring ferret racing into some of our displays next season and a new page is coming soon!

With Christmas on the way we've stocked up on food for both humans and birds and we give the birds a break and a good feed over the festive period, ready for the new year!

If you are still doing some Christmas shopping please do check out our experiences page. All of our experience days come as a voucher which is valid for 12 months, since these are Christmas presents the are valid till Christmas 2016! To make sure they arrive before Christmas please order before the 22nd of December!

We've also had some sponsorship's bought for some lucky people as Christmas presents. Each sponsor gets to visit their sponsored bird twice in a year, gets a personalised sponsorship card & certificate and a photograph of their chosen bird of prey.

We are also offering Gift Vouchers these are a set amount and are to fund any of our experences.

Agan we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2016!!

With summer drawing to a close so now have our summer flying demonstrations. Each year summer brings an endless array of country shows and fetes, and this year has been no exception. As usual we've travelled far and wide -- as far as Lincolnshire and beyond -- and we've had some great experiences. We especially enjoyed meeting all of the guests and spectators who took the time to appreciate our displays. Thank you to all of you, we hope you all enjoyed it. Thank you too to the shows' organisers for helping make our involvement a great success. We hope to see all of you again next year!

Photography Workshops have also finished for this year, but we're happy to announce that professional wildlife photographers Tony & Carol Dilger and Paul Miguel have all confirmed new dates with us for next year. This year the workshops were as popular as ever, with each and every one being fully-booked. During the year we bought 2 new birds, a Spectacled Owl and a Red Kite (both mentioned in the previous blog post). It has been especially brilliant to have the Red Kite available for photographs, she is such a striking and colourful bird, and although they are native to our country they are certainly not a bird that you'd be likely to get close to in the wild!

The schools are now back in full-swing and we've been getting plenty of bookings for school visits already. They are one of our team's favourite activities -- it's great to see the children (and teachers) captivated by the birds -- so we are looking forwards to getting more involved with that over the coming months.

Couples are starting to plan their weddings for next year, too, and we have had more enquiries than ever for them this year! Perhaps our shiny new website is demonstrating our passion and commitment more effectively? Whatever it is we are happy to have the opportunity to get involved. (It's ever-so exciting to be able to involve the birds with such a wide variety of activities.)

So it's hunting season… Just started, in fact… Most weekends between now and the middle of November are already booked with hunting days.

The nights are drawing in. Everyone is getting ready for winter. Have a good one!

We've had some exciting changes at SMJ Falconry over the last year.

Specsavers in Keighley have kindly sponsored our new Spectacled Owl, who we called Sofia. Thank you for that, Specsavers! We're looking forwards to doing some publicity with you down at the shop... We also managed to find a young Red Kite to join our team.

Sofia the Spectacled Owl became one of our most popular birds almost instantly. Unlike many other birds she keeps her fledgling feathers for a full year -- so she's very fluffy and people love her as a result. Our Red Kite is also stunning to look at but more of a performer, we called her Willow. She is also a fantastic addition to the team, and is already taking part in demonstrations, experience days and photography workshops. We hope to have the opportunity to use her for film work in the future!

We have recently published a Press & Media page on the website. This contains newspaper articles that have been published about us, and other media such as the publicity for a critically-acclaimed movie that we were contracted to provide the services of one of our birds for. We will continue to update the page with any new media as and when it comes about. Click here to take a look >

It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here... Welcome to our brand-new and much improved website!

With this new website we'll be keeping everyone up to date with what's happening at SMJ Falconry, as well as bringing you exciting new things like videos and this blog. Special thanks to Sam Wray for helping us to build the website.

It's been a busy season so far, but we still have lots of the year left to go. Soon it will be the end of the summer and we will be back out in the Yorkshire dales with our Hawks on our hunting days.

Thank you for visiting our new site, we hope you've enjoyed your visit. We also have facebook and twitter pages, so you can follow our updates there too -- we post much more regularly there, with photographs of our displays and activities, and of the birds bathing etc. You can find links to twitter and facebook at the very bottom of the page.