Imagine my surprise when this fellow and his partner turned up at an outside table on a spring Saturday afternoon in our home town of Veliko Tarnovo, in the Hunter Inn close to the River Yantra and
Gurko Street.
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| Pavel and Harry in Veliko Tarnovo |
Yes, you can see he had with him a Harris Hawk or Harris's Hawk, indigenous to south USA and down to Chile, South America.
His name is Pavel Yakimov, the chairman of
BAZGP (Bulgarian Association for the preservation of raptors). He took time out to explain what they are doing and introduced me to Harry the Harris Hawk.
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| Pavel Yakimov, Harry and Phil |
I was honoured to be introduced to such a beautiful raptor, and somewhat gloomed by the story that many Bulgarian "Green activists" call him barbaric and a torturer etc....these misfits are so misinformed, these raptors are doing what they do naturally and if that means they keep pigeons and other birds away from airport runways as an example, I see nothing barbaric in this.
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| Phil meet Harry the Harris Hawk, in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria |
I am sincerely grateful to Pavel for taking time off his well earned lunch to share Harry with me for a few minutes and it is a chance encounter I will never forget!
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| Harry the Harris Hawk in Bulgaria |
