On Wednesday the 7th May Sandbank Primary School, Nursery, Gaelic Medium Unit and Sgoil Araich were visited by Owl Magic from Kilmarnock. Nine different owls from all over the world spent the day with us, as each class learned about birds of prey and how to handle them carefully and safely. The owls ranged from a large eagle owl from Afghanistan called Bailey down to a pygmy owl called Titch.



We learned that you can tell what time of day each type of owl prefers for hunting by their eye colour. Nocturnal (night) owls have dark eyes, diurnal (daytime) owls have yellow eyes and crepuscular (dawn and dusk) owls have orange eyes. Everyone had the chance to hold an owl or to stroke them gently. Those who held the birds had to use a very thick glove to protect their arm. We could see the strength of the birds’ claws and hooked beaks and feel how soft their feathers were.












The nursery children have been reading owl stories and factual books, sewing owl bean bags and making owl masks. The older children have been learning about animal classification and finding out why different animals are grouped according to their similar characteristics.















Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day and we can all recommend Owl Magic to other schools in the area. We contacted them through their website to find out the price and they also have a facebook page. Our only complaint was about the weather. It poured with rain all day and we had to use the hall as the birds don’t like getting their feathers too wet. This made photographing them quite a challenge as we didn’t want to use a flash which might have hurt their eyes. We had been hoping to use our outdoor classroom beside the three bears, but the Scottish climate put paid to that idea! We’d like to express our thanks to the Parents and Toddlers group who moved into the library for the morning, giving us the use of the school hall. It was very much appreciated.