The Scottish Owl Centre

I've been a bit rubbish at keeping this blog up to date. It was always meant to be a record of the places that we visited but writing posts takes me a lot of time. You wouldn't guess that from my appalling grammar would you?
In the last few weeks here are some of the things we have been up to. Each with a lovely post of it's own.

Sat 28th April: The Scottish Owl Centre at Polkemmet Park
If it had just been me and the little one, we would not have gone in as I felt the entrance fee of £7.50 for adults and £5.50 for kids aged 3-15 was extortionate, especially in the current recession. It was a cold day and it was going to take a lot to cheer me up. The first view is a large Owl shaped slide for kids which was quite impressive. However, we decided to walk around first. My daughter was not overly impressed with the birds. Don't get me wrong, they are magnificent looking but it's really sad seeing birds of prey caged up, in the cold, not moving, looking quite miserable. We were also taken aback by the dead chicks in the floors of some of the cages....I know the birds have to eat but we weren't expecting it.
There are quite a few owls but some of the cages were empty. There is an educational area which had some interesting facts and a few interactive things for tot but most of the displays were too high for her to look at so she got bored.
We hung around as we had booked to see a flying display at 3.30pm. This was a bit of a turning point for me...the man doing the displays was very entertaining even when 2 of the 3 birds refused to do much. It was also quite awesome to see these birds fly. Unfortunately, one of the owls was very scared of wheeled objects and was really scared of an old lady's wheeled walker. I wish that her companions had had the sense to put it outside to calm the bird down.
We left hoping to get a cake at the Ivory Tower Cakes tearoom directly opposite the entrance to the Owl Centre but guess what...they were shutting on a Saturday at 4pm. We went in and there were some yummy looking cakes on display which we said we would take away, but were told that they had been trying to shut for the last 10 minutes and wouldn't serve us. I find this sort of behaviour odd in a  recession - there are people who want your food, you are a food establishment but you turn them away. What are you going to do with the cakes? Sell them the next day ergo not so fresh.

Overall conclusion: Wish we had gone on a warm sunny day. There is enough to do in Polkemmet park that it would take a lot to convince me to visit the owls again but to see them fly is magnificent.