Sky-Talons Luxe & Plume is now open off Route 9. Appointments are filling fast. Evelyn Crowe asks that you please call ahead, and also that you perhaps reconsider the parking situation before it escalates.

I’ve received quite a few letters this week about the new establishment that has opened in the old Hargrove Feed & Supply building off Route 9, and I want to start by saying — this is, on the whole, good news. Sky-Talons Luxe & Plume, the aerial grooming salon operated by the Thunderbird known locally as Maerath, represents exactly the kind of community enterprise gap-filling that I have long thought this area needed. Those of you who have been trying to get your bonded barn owl’s primary feathers seen to by a standard groomer will understand the specific frustration I am referring to. Those of you who have not will simply have to trust me that it has been a situation.

Community Notice

Sky-Talons Luxe & Plume on Route 9, photographed during Tuesday’s soft opening. The roof aperture is, per Maerath, intentional and non-negotiable. — WTC File Photo

Maerath — who, for those unfamiliar, has roosted in the ridge above the Kettner farm for the better part of three decades without particular incident, the 2019 unpleasantness notwithstanding — has apparently been formally trained in avian feather care, talion maintenance, and what the salon’s materials describe as “atmospheric coat conditioning,” which I understand to involve a brief, controlled lightning pass. In my experience, electromagnetic feather treatment produces exceptional results for cryptid-class birds, and I see no reason to be concerned provided clients follow the pre-appointment guidance about removing metal jewellery, pacemakers, and any objects acquired between 1987 and 1991 that they cannot fully account for. This will be explained on the intake form.

Services, Pricing, and the Matter of the Roof

Sky-Talons Luxe & Plume currently offers a full flight-feather assessment and trim, a keratin conditioning treatment described on the menu as “the Stormfront,” and what Maerath calls a “resonance bath,” the precise nature of which I have not yet been able to confirm but which three of my readers have described as, variously, “remarkable,” “probably fine,” and “I need to sit down.” Pricing is by wingspan, which I find entirely reasonable. The salon does not have a traditional ceiling. This is by design and should not be reported to the county building inspector, who I am told has already been in twice and has been handled. I encourage readers to simply accept the open-sky atrium as the architectural choice it clearly is and to dress accordingly.

The atmospheric coat conditioning is second to none. My red-tailed hawk hasn’t looked this good since the Perseids. I did lose a filling, but I believe that was unrelated.

— Reader letter, name withheld on request

I will say — and I am setting aside a rather lovely chicken and mushroom casserole to do so, so I hope this is taken in the spirit it’s intended — that the letters expressing alarm about the parking situation are not entirely without merit. Thirteen golden eagles arriving for back-to-back appointments on a Saturday morning does create a certain amount of activity on the Route 9 corridor that other motorists may find surprising. My practical advice is as follows: if you are driving past Sky-Talons between eight and eleven on a weekend morning, keep your windows up, drive at a steady and unhurried pace, and do not, under any circumstances, make eye contact with anything that is waiting outside. This is not because anything outside is hostile. It is simply that the waiting area is the car park, several of the clients are quite large, and sustained eye contact with a groomed eagle who has just had the Stormfront is an experience that tends to reorganise one’s priorities in ways that can affect driving.

A Gap That Needed Filling, and the Community’s Response

I have received forty-seven letters about Sky-Talons since news of its opening began circulating last week, and I have replied to all forty-seven personally, which brings my total correspondence to eight hundred and forty-seven replies. The letters range from enthusiastic — several readers with bonded harpies or cryptid-adjacent raptors expressed genuine relief — to concerned, primarily from residents who live within the flight path of Route 9 and are experiencing what one writer described as “an ongoing shadow situation” around mid-morning. To those readers I would say: the shadow situation will diminish once the initial appointment backlog clears, and in the interim, consider it a pleasant reminder that your community contains more than you might see from your kitchen window. I find these reminders valuable. My neighbour Gerald would agree, I think, though I haven’t been able to confirm this with him directly since Tuesday. I am monitoring the situation.

Sky-Talons Luxe & Plume represents a fully compliant Class IV aerial service operation. Any reports of unscheduled lightning on the premises are under review. The roof situation is also under review. These are different reviews.

— Arthur Pritchard, DCA Spokesperson

In closing: I think this is a welcome addition to the community, and I would encourage those of you with eligible creatures to make an appointment sooner rather than later. Maerath has indicated that availability may become limited once word reaches the eastern migration corridor, at which point the waiting list will extend into what she described as “the inconvenient season,” which I was not able to get her to specify further but which I suspect correlates with the calendar irregularity I have been tracking since February. Book early. Remove your metal. Do not bring fish. And please, for the love of everything, do not park under the overhang. I cannot stress this enough, and I say that as someone whose herb garden contains two plants that do not appear in any known botanical index and who therefore has a reasonably high threshold for what constitutes a manageable situation. The overhang is not manageable. Park on the verge.