Last Mother’s Day, my family gave my favorite present – the gift of travel. But where to go that day?  My first thought was NYC. You know by now that I love visiting that city and  I had just told you about all of the festivals, fairs, and other events were going on that weekend.

In the end, though, I decided to take us all in another direction- Manchester Village, Vermont which is only about an hour and a half drive from Albany, New York. There’s a lot to do there including outlets and restaurants, but I wanted to give my kids an experience that they would always remember.

So I was happy that we were invited to visit the British School of Falconry.  I had previously written about this unusual place located near historic Hildene, but Sarah and Alex had never been there before.

I knew right from the beginning I had made a great choice for Mother’s Day. When we arrived, Robert Waite first gave us a tour of the facilities including  the individual homes of  the various hawks and an eagle that live there.

Next, Robert introduced us to our hawk, Billings.

Of the four of us, Sarah and I were the ones who donned the leather glove and flew and caught Billings.

Although Alex could not personally fly Billings because Alex is under the minimum age of twelve, he had a good time watching the process and touching the bird’s special chest cavity to approximate how much food the bird still had inside of him.