Simon phoned from India yesterday morning, the candler that they have for checking eggs is not powerful enough so I am trying to get them a better one as soon as I can. We will need it to check vultures eggs in the near future. Otherwise it seems to be going well, although we do miss him here.

Yesterday dawned with a dense mist at 6.30am, it was mysterious and exciting, I went down and fed the dogs and blow me it had almost all gone in less than half an hour, then the sun burnt through and we had a perfectly lovely day. I managed to get some of the birds flown before the Experience Day started at 10.00. Casper was good, the Lugger was good, the Steppe Eagle is slowly improving and I did the Gymnogene in his aviary as well. It was a falcon day which involves teaching people how to swing a lure well enough to fly one of the Lanners in the afternoon. They did well. At the same time we had a photography weekend, so various birds with Julie, one of the volunteers went out into the field to sit on natural perches and be photographed, and then those on the course went into Charlies Room and worked on what they had done. It was a great day for everyone on the various courses. John and Zoe managed to get the zoo mesh on one of the Kite aviaries, they are going to look great when they are finished, although I think Zoe had more black stain on her than the timer! Then followed the second Owl Evening. Holly had to go and get ready for a wedding - not hers, and Adam got back in time to help with the owl evening and hear the guided tour. It went very well, the weather was mild and the moon was out. Oath did much better, Cool Ground (Snowy Owl) was excellent (well Adam says he was!) And Hemp was as good as ever. It was a long day!

Today dawned very wet and windy. The dogs did not want to go out after their breakfast and Sedge pointed out that he would be perfectly happy for me to carry him, if I wanted to! I didn't! He and Acer picked up pears from below a small pear tree (not surprising that really!) and took them into the house. We saw the results later on the floor in the shop, it is a good job that we have planning to re-carpet the shop in the winter.

It was a very quiet day, very few visitors, the weather was dire to start with, I fed round as Holly was off, got through two skirts, two coats and two jerseys I was so wet! Then the rain stopped and we were able to start to fly birds, we did pretty much everyone because I like to get them used to flying in less than optimum conditions and this was less than optimum conditions! The falcons all managed well, the Peregrine was stunning, the only one I did not fly was the younger Peregrine who could not have coped. We also left the smaller owls as they get blown around so much.

I think I was tired by the end of the day as I was definitely getting ratty! However a hair cut by Jan this afternoon, an early evening bath and next early bed with a good book will do the trick.