A busy month for Sharon!

Sharon has just returned to England after spending 2 weeks working out in India. Needless to say, she's shattered - she didn't just have the time difference and long journey to contend with, she also had to get used to working much longer hours every day and spending two hours a day in Indian traffic.

The trip was quite eventful - strange men trying to get into her hotel room at 7:30 in the morning, Delhi Belly, old men trying to buy her drinks in the bar and arguments with reception about why fruit juice had been classified as 'food' and not 'drink' on her hotel bill (yes, it did matter in terms of what Sharon was allowed to charge to her company credit card)!

Still, she did get to fly business class and now she's had a taste of travelling in style, Craig's worried he'll never be able to get her to go back-packing again.

At the start of the month, Sharon had her Christmas present from Craig - a day flying the birds of prey at the Hawk Conservancy near Andover. Ok, so Christmas was a long time ago, but Sharon wanted to at least stand a fighting chance of doing this on a nice day. Luckily, she managed to pick one of the few dry days this summer and had a fantastic time.

As usual, here are some piccies of the day (Craig wasn't taking part so he was able to be Sharon's official photographer for the day!)

This is Parsley, Sharon's very own Harris Hawk for the day. He was a very young bird and still learning but Sharon was just happy to have a male bird as the females were a lot heavier (you try holding one of these on your wrist for an hour!)

A quick pose for the camera and then it down to business, ie. feeding Parsley!! Unfortunately for Parsley, this meant he had to do some work.

Sharon and Parsley had great fun, although for very different reasons - Sharon's enjoyment had nothing to do with devouring small chicks and rats whereas it was a different story for Parsley.

Then it was time to meet some other birds. After flying a Tawny Eagle and feeding the Black kites by throwing food in the air for them to catch, Sharon got the chance to fly Avon, a rather noisy, young Barn Owl. After some of the other birds, Avon felt as light as a feather (sorry, couldn't resist)...

Trying to encourage the Griffin Vulture to eat the meat in Sharon's hand rather than chase after the person with the camera proved rather tricky!!

Last but not least was Tolkien the Eagle Owl. Sharon wasn't trying to lean away from his beak in this photo, she was trying to counter balance the huge weight on her wrist without falling over - he was the heaviest bird of the day and still not fully grown. When he took off from the glove, it threw your arm backwards!

After the weight of some of the birds she had held, Sharon was very glad not to be flying Danebury the Bald Eagle who was HUGE! He did pose nicely for the camera though: