Little, large and everything in between – let’s take you through some of the epic wingspans of the birds here at The Bird of Prey Project. Want to see it for yourself? Grab some day tickets and experience wings whistling overhead during one of our displays or experiences.
We’ve got to start with our smallest resident at the centre – Sulis is an adorable Little Owl, one of our five resident owl species here in the UK. He weighs a whopping 125 grams, with a neck the width of the average little finger. His wingspan? About a 30 centimetre ruler!
How about the world’s fastest living creature? WeeMan the Peregrine Falcon is a re-homed resident at The Bird of Prey Project who is partially sighted with no vision out of his right eye. He still flies in our displays and you can catch him in action in the 11am show at the centre. As for those thin pointed wings, that help him master speeds of well over 100mph? His wingspan is just over a metre, so that’s the average length of an acoustic guitar.
Time to nudge it up a size?
Neo the Buzzard looks super cool when he’s soaring a few hundred feet in the sky – although truth be told he can be famously slow to get up in the air, preferring the view from the top of the barn roof. But his wingspan is nearly four and a half feet, larger than a professional hockey stick.
Now let’s skip to the biggest of them all – Arwen the European Eagle owl was re-homed here at the centre in 2017, sadly her previous owner was unable to continue to take care of her.
These owls are one of the largest species in the entire world, and Arwen weighs in at 4 kilos with a wingspan of 2 metres. That’s the width of a king-sized mattress!
Pretty cool huh? Wingspans are incredible, and come in all different shapes and sizes – long, thin and pointed wings for speed, large wide wings for soaring or short rounded wings for tucking between tight covers. All of them look incredible as part of our multiple award-winning flying displays!
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