Rafael Farriols

Sant Feliu de Codines is home to Spain's only en­vi­ron­men­tal ed­u­ca­tional cen­tre spe­cial­is­ing in birds of prey. Its main ob­jec­tive is to ed­u­cate the pub­lic in the char­ac­ter­is­tics and pe­cu­liar­i­ties of these mag­nif­i­cent birds with vis­its and talks in the cage areas as well as ob­ser­va­tion in flight out­doors. The cen­tre also breeds the birds in cap­tiv­ity and cares for in­jured birds.

Rafael Far­riols, who set up the cen­tre in 1994 and is the di­rec­tor, ex­plains us the main tools used for his work.

The cen­tre hosts about one hun­dred birds of the three main types of birds of prey: day-time hunters: ea­gles and fal­cons; scav­engers, such as vul­tures, and night hunters, owls, and eagle owls.

1. Feed­bag: Worn on ei­ther side of my belt; here I carry bird food as well as the tools of trade I may need at any par­tic­u­lar time.

2. Gaunt­let, or glove: We use two types of gloves; one that is lighter for the smaller birds such as fal­cons, kestrels, buz­zards and an­other, longer, heav­ier leather glove for the larger species such as ea­gles and vul­tures. The glove is worn on the left hand and pro­tects us from being scratched. These birds have quite long and sharp talons!

3. Jacket: At times it is nec­es­sary to con­strain a bird to make some ad­just­ment or to check that every­thing is in order.

4. Trans­mit­ter clip: Now­days we can keep track of younger birds in train­ing in case they get lost by radio sig­nal.

5. Hoods: We re­strict the birds' vi­sion when we are trans­port­ing them or when we need them to be still. The hoods also serve to re­duce stress.

6. Lure, or decoy: We use these in train­ing to com­mand the bird to re­turn to its han­dler, usu­ally there is a piece of meat at­tached as a re­ward.

7. Be­wits: Some species don't ac­tu­ally fly too far away from the han­dler so it isn't nec­es­sary for them to carry a trans­mit­ter.

How­ever, in forests or areas of thick veg­e­ta­tion at times these bells at­tached to the legs of the birds with a leather strap will help the han­dler find a trapped, in­jured or lost bird.

8. Jesses: These are soft leashes tied to the legs of the birds that stop the bird from fly­ing off when they rest­ing on the fist, or gaunt­let of the fal­coner.

9. This par­tic­u­lar bird I have here is a male, pere­grine fal­con.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion check the cen­tre's web­site: www.​cimdaligues.​com