Cotswold Falconry Centre
Stand in a field with a Harris hawk on your glove and watch it sweep back across the treetops.
Stand in a field with a Harris hawk on your glove and watch it sweep back across the treetops.
This is one of those places that catches everyone off guard. You arrive expecting a quiet hour looking at birds in aviaries, and within twenty minutes you are standing in a field watching an eagle sweep low across the grass towards its handler. It is the day out we reach for when we have younger guests staying, or grandparents, or frankly anyone who needs coaxing away from the sofa. The centre sits on the Batsford Estate about a mile and a half west of Moreton-in-Marsh, tucked right beside Batsford Arboretum, and from Well Cottage it is a gentle drive of around twenty-five minutes through some of the prettiest lanes in the northern Cotswolds.
Geoff and Naomi Dalton opened the centre in 1988 and it has grown into one of the leading bird-of-prey collections in the country, home to around 150 birds across more than sixty species. The range is what stays with you: tiny pygmy falcons you could almost cup in both hands, barn owls that drift past in near silence, and enormous eagles with wingspans that make you step back instinctively. Alongside them are vultures, kites, buzzards, harriers, caracaras and even secretary birds. Wandering the aviaries is pleasant enough, but the flying displays are the reason to time your visit well.
There are three entirely different demonstrations each day, and your admission lasts all day, so you can happily settle in for more than one. The handlers are genuinely passionate and the commentary is informative without ever tipping into a lecture. You learn things you find yourself repeating over dinner: how a falcon stoops, why an owl makes no sound in flight, what a vulture is actually for. Watching a big bird pass a few feet above your head, then bank and return on command, never gets old however many times we bring people.
What lifts this above a standard wildlife attraction is the hands-on side. The centre runs falconry experiences and owl sessions where you are out in the Gloucestershire countryside with a bird on your glove, calling it back to your fist yourself. It is a surprisingly emotional thing, feeling the weight land and the talons close around the glove. These book up separately and well in advance, so if it appeals to someone in your party it is worth sorting before you arrive rather than hoping on the day. Behind the scenes the centre also does serious conservation and breeding work, which the handlers are happy to talk about between displays.
The falconry centre shares its car park with Batsford Arboretum, so the two pair naturally into a single outing: birds in the morning, a long loop through the trees and a slice of cake in the arboretum café after. Moreton-in-Marsh is only a few minutes away for lunch or a browse, and the town's Tuesday market is a good excuse to build a whole day around the trip. It all sits comfortably within our list of things to do from the cottage.
“We have taken guests here dozens of times. It never gets old watching an eagle fly a few feet above your head.”
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.