If, like me, you're local to North Somerset you might have seen the very distinctive and boxy Land Rover of the North Somerset Bird of Prey Centre driving around. I’d often wondered if they were a local attraction that was open to members of the public and it ends up they're not open as a rule. They do organised educational group visits or, I believe, they go out to places with their birds, but it’s not like they’re open every day of the week for you to drop in and see them.
North Somerset Bird of Prey Open Days
What is really good though is that they do regular open days. I don’t know if they are strictly monthly but they seem to be pretty much once a month, so in June we went to a North Somerset BIrd of Prey Centre open day and it was great.
Are the Bird of Prey Centre open days busy?
I'd heard in advance from a friend that these days can be really busy, and that was backed up by something I read online. So we almost didn’t bother going because I’ve got people in my household who just cannot be bothered with busy. But we didn’t have anything better to do, and I’m really glad that we made the push to do it.
It cost about £30 for five of us to go in which, for a day out nowadays, is really cheap and and included some very distinctive up close encounters with unusual animals, making it more of a memorable day out then lots of other things you might do.
Can you hold the birds at North Somerset Bird of Prey open days?
When we got there there was a blackboard outside with the itinerary for the day, plus I'd read it in advance on their Facebook page which I think they update more than their website, so I already knew we were nearing the end of the time where you could hold owls. Therefore as soon as we got there we asked where we needed to dash to.
We got to a queue and lined up and waited for maybe five or 10 minutes to hold an owl so that was really not a bad wait and it really didn’t seem too busy.
We got to choose which of 3 owls you wanted to hold (by which I mean it sat on your hand on a glove). I guess if you hung around longer you might have been able to do more than one but we all chose the barn owl because the littlest kids thought it looked like Hedwig from Harry Potter (even though he’s actually a snowy owl which we saw later in the day there). That was a brilliant start to our day, getting up close to a beautiful owl.
After that we went into the part of the site that is enclosures, and you wander around between, well, cages of mostly birds with some other animals as well. You could see lots of the birds - they were out saying hi, although some of them had signs saying that they were sitting on eggs so requested you weren't too loud.
The cages weren’t massive but I do trust that this place really know and understand their birds so I hope they’ve given the space they need to give them the exercise they need. It’s got a bit of a sanctuary vibe and their website does say they take in a lot of rescues.
We also saw foxes, raccoons (which are actually massive and when you think of what you hear about aon American TV, if you had a racoon running round your back garden you would know about it!), armadillo, binturong and meerkats. Their website also mentions mongoose, ferrets and agouti. The meerkats were a huge hit with the little kids because they are the most animated animals there so they were giving everyone plenty to look at.
Over the top of a wall we could see some absolutely massive Steller's Sea Eagles, and we could hear other birds, so we asked if we were just missing a pathway to get to see more, but they said that actually you couldn’t get back there because they were big dangerous birds so they weren’t open to the public.
A little bit later in the day we went back to the area where they had the animals out to hold some reptiles. We’d been there just before it started and there was no queue but we went back to our car to eat a banana and by the time we got back there was a massive queue so we should’ve just hung around and sent Tom back for the bananas. Unlike with the owls, which had had 2 people attending the queue, it was a bit unclear as to whether you were queueing to do all of the reptiles or just one. Other people weren’t sure either so some people were queueing twice and other people were just moving from animal to animal so they could’ve done with someone directing people. We held 2 different snakes, a lizard and touched a millipede!
I don't think there's a falconry display as such, with birds flying - or at least I don't think there was at this open day.
Parking at the North Somerset Bird of Prey Centre
There’s free parking at the North Somerset Bird of Prey Centre, and plenty of it. It’s between Cadbury Garden Centre and Cadbury House Hotel so it’s easy to find. You literally walk through the entrance to Mendip Conservatories, and through their display groups, and then they’re at the back there. Be warned, if you need to sneak people past, there’s also a soft play back there! As well as a cafe.
There weren't any refreshments at the open day, but there was a drink stall just outside and the cafe so I felt like other local businesses make the most of the people flocking to the open day. There was a nice atmosphere just outside the gate to the bird of prey centre, and people sat on grass eating. We also walked back to the car park through Congresbury Garden Centre, as their back entrance backs onto the bird of prey centre entrance, and got a couple of plants, so it's great for the other local companies.
It did feel like it got busier during the day and for the raccoon talk we couldn’t really hear what was being said - the guy could’ve done with a microphone because they were quite a few people crowded around. But on the whole we did everything we wanted to do, it wasn’t prohibitively busy, and it was really nice to see so many different ages of people there that obviously really appreciate the birds.
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