Above us only sky

Most of you will know that Dave keeps birds of prey. He's been into it for a long time but has only kept them for just over 2 years. He has a hawk but mainly keeps owls. He's been really successful at training them all to fly free. I can't tell you how scary and exciting it is to let a bird go free for the first time, watch it swoop and circle and eventually come back to you when you call it. The secret to it all lies within careful weight management and a slow, steady build up of trust between man and bird.
So after a while it seemed natural for Dave to try his hand at breeding. Well trained birds are what is known as 'imprinted' to a human. That means that the bird thinks the human is it's parent as it is the source of it's food. It knows that when it's called it will be treated with a tasty morsel. To successfully imprint a bird it must be taken from it's natural parents at about 10 days old, preferably before it opens it's eyes, and be hand-reared.
Enna was the first bird Dave bred. Her name is taken from the Greek word 'ena' (pronounced enna), meaning number one. We chose a Greek word because of our long history with Corfu but that's another story.
So Enna, a beautiful female barn owl, was brought in at 10 days old. She was kept indoors in an incubator and Dave dutifully fed her every four hours. In a weird case of deja vu he even set that alarm to get up for the night time feeds. As she grew he was able to start 'manning' her. That means getting her used to being handled and to sit steadily on his glove. When she was about 6 weeks old he was able to fit her anklets and jesses (the leather straps). As soon as she had all her feathers and was therefore able to keep warm outdoors during the night, she was ready to go out into her aviary. Training could now be stepped up and by the time she was 8 weeks old she was flying free.
Enna is now 12 weeks old. Last Tuesday he was flying her in the garden. It was quite windy that day and she'd flew up onto the roof a bungalow over the back. At this point she'd almost finished her exercise and had eaten all but one piece of food. He called her down and she came but a gust of wind took her up and over the rooftops. He chased in the general direction, ran across the park over the road and into the fields beyond but there was no sign.
That night some kids from over the road knocked and said they'd seen an owl and had we lost one. We went out and criss-crossed all over the estate opposite. No sign.
The following day the kids put up some posters I'd printed. We weren't hopeful at all of finding her because she's only 12 weeks old and we didn't think she'd have that hunting instinct. There were a few reported sightings so Dave got up at daybreak each day looking for her and we both went out at dusk. Still no sign.
Tonight, Sunday, we got a phone call from a stranger who'd been out with his dog and seen an owl and had seen one of our posters. We got Lulu, our whippet, and set off.
We went across the park and into the corn fields then into the woodland beyond. Then I spotted her. She was on the other side of a corn field in a tree. I couldn't quite make out if it was a white owl or a piece of pale tree bark where a branch had snapped off. But then the white blob jumped and went down into the corn.
Dave scrambled down a bank, over a muddy stream and into the corn field and started calling her. After a few minutes she rose from the corn and flew. She circled the corn field, occasionally disappearing into the woodland and emerging again.
She flew and flew, pausing only once or twice, seemingly to give us time to catch up before setting off again. All this time Dave was calling her and waving some food. She swooped low, just a few feet above the corn and looked like she was coming in to land on his glove. At one point she was so close we could see her leather jesses trailing behind her. But she didn't come to him. And trust me, if she was hungry she would have glided to his glove for that big fat treat.
She did one more circle of the corn field before flying into the woodland and out of sight. Dave called and called but we didn't see her again. And he won't look again.
Because watching her fly like she did taught us a few things.
That we were wrong about her not having a hunting instinct. Flying like she did, swooping and gliding, twisting and turning means she's fit and healthy. Which means she's eating. Which means she hunting.
So we have to accept that she's wild and free. And happy.