Me and the good lady were recently in a lovely place in the Lake District called Ravenglass, for a slightly silly travelogue entry have a look at this,

https://steemit.com/life/@wisbeech/the-shadow-over-ravenstone-and-a-small-break-from-crypto-trading

Muncaster Castle

It’s a castle, you know the kind, large grounds and loads of historical information,

The scenery was magnificent and the views you could have stared at all day long.

Tom Fool (aka tomfoolery)

We also got to learn about the spirit of Tom Fool, he was the last fool of Muncaster, some pictures below, but I was stunned to learn that the word Tomfoolery actually comes from Muncaster, if Tom thought you were rude he would send you in the wrong direction if you asked him for directions.

This was Tom's tree,

and the sign caught my eyes as well,

Okay so I am digressing slightly, the good lady is obsessed with Owls, I like them too, they are beautiful and majestic birds, in fact I am of the opinion all of nature is the same, we just don’t seem to appreciate that enough sometimes for my liking.

Conservation

I am slightly conflicted at times, I am not a fan of zoos, especially poorly run ones that in no way enrich the life of an animal, to spend the rest of your life in a cage sounds like the most miserable thing you could inflict on another creature.

The flip side of that is the conservation movement, breeding animals in captivity to one day be released into the wild or even just keep their numbers up, if done well then okay, as long as the animal is enriched and happy and not there to be stared at and an excuse to make money.

So we decided to go to the Hawk and Owl centre, the morning display was of owls,

Okay, I am no expert, but during the display the handlers had a genuine affection for the magnificent creatures, we paid some cash and supported what looks like a good cause.

and now, onto the point...

At the morning session one of the handlers mentioned the afternoon session and that was with the Hawks and Vultures.

I puzzled at the inclusion of vultures, thinking, hmm they aren’t a bird of prey, and later would be slightly ashamed of my instant prejudice.

I wish I had been able to take some pictures, but thanks to what feels like stone age battery tech in new(ish) phone it packed up and I don’t get to take any pictures.

However, the display was again quite informative, there was an eagle, and being 5 years old was just finding its feet, so as the handler said the eagle was getting the hang of soaring, and gliding about the sky and just being an Eagle, one of the previous shows had seen the bird soar for two hours, she pointed out that the birds have free will, if they want to do that then they can, they are there to enrich and improve the life of the Eagle.

So, next was the Vulture presentation.

Apologies, but I have had to go to the net to get some pictures of the vulture, so these next two images aren’t my own, they are borrowed to illustrate

What I noticed was that the vulture wasn’t tethered, if it wanted to it could have flown off. It didn’t.

As the handler talked she spoke of how endangered these magnificent creatures are.

They are associated with death and used in witchcraft, basically go to see someone and they use a part of the bird to "cure" conditions like syphilis!!
(http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0005192)

She also told us that just the previous day she had heard reports that 96 Vultures had been poisoned in one go!

I did a bit of reading and was shocked at how persecuted they are as a species, Vultures are nature's cleaners, they clear up carrion, they stop disease, in fact their stomach acid is so strong that anything they ingest bacteria and virus wise comes out completely harmless.

We may get a bit squeamish about what they do, but what they do is vital and it makes me sad and angry that people don’t see that!

So from an education point of view I am glad we went to Muncaster Castle and if any other other Steemians are in that neck of the woods give it a go, at worst you are helping spread the messages that Vultures should be protected.