Sunday 5 June 2011

Its June! Blow me down where does the year go. The Bath and West Show went well, it is absolutely exhausting to be away from home and doing two demonstrations per day, I don't think people realise just how tiring it is. The show was good, we did eight excellent demonstrations and the birds were faultless. However it was not easy, the wind was extremely strong for all four days, and it was hot as hell on the Friday, but the real problem was the sodding gulls. Every time we started to fly the birds the gulls started to appear, my considered opinion is that the best gull is a dead one!! By the time we got to the eagle on each demonstration they were up to about 20 of the damn things and they gave Hare a miserable time.

I don't think people understand just how difficult they make my job, they dive consistently at the birds and keep their height down, so what should have been a great day for superb flying on the Friday with the eagle was spoilt by the XXXXXDX gulls!! At one point I thought one of the Lesser Black Backed Gulls was going to actually catch one of the male lanners, but all things considered the birds did not let me down and did very well. Oh, that is with the exception of Bay Middleton, (male Harris Hawk) who did a good demonstration on the first day, an excellent one on the second day and on the third and fourth day behaved like a completely untrained bird!! He refused to do anything. Needless to say, today, at home, he remembered he was a trained bird and had it not been raining all day and me being very tired, he would have flown in his normal fashion, as it is I am still pissed off with him!

Everything is more or less OK here, one or two problems, but nothing that is not part of the normal routine of this place. The grass is finally growing, which reminds me, I sort of bought a tractor at the Bath and West!!!!!!!!! Well wait a bit, we desperately need a better mower for Nathan, but if I buy a good commercial mower - that is all it does - mow.

So there was this tractor - an elderly but really good one, with grass tyres, which means we can take it over the field at almost any time, and a great finishing mower with a five foot cut. So.................... it will be here in about ten days, so I have to tell Nathan and at the same time have a word about the second light that has just been written off!

The birds are well, the away team was very pleased to be home, as was I I have to say. I have to drive to Yorkshire later this week for a wedding and I have no clothes that are suitable. My wardrobe really is getting somewhat scary it is so poor. But we will give the Range Rover a test and see if it can get to Yorkshire and back, otherwise it will be the AA that I am calling!! While I was away the BBC emailed to see if we could tell them of a good place to fly a kestrel for filming and bugger me, they were using someone else for the damn filming - what a bloody nerve to ask us and not use our birds. That would be like me emailing ITV and stating that I was filming with the BBC and could they tell me of a good location they have used in the past!!!!!!!!!!

Other than that, I have caught up with most of the emails and probably only annoyed two people at most, I am desperately tired having not slept well for days, and I am looking forward to settling back down again after being away, which I do not enjoy any more. The dogs are happily asleep on the sofa's and I am aiming for an early night.

0 comments:

Hello

I have to say that keeping a weblog can at times become compulsive and at other times a chore. Sometimes I am berrated for not keeping it up and sometimes I get wonderful comments from people who follow the news of the Centre.

It is fun to share the daily goings on here, some good and some bad, some funny and some sad, but all a part of our daily lives.
And as I said before its a pretty cool to be here and it is a great place to visit, you should try coming and watching the birds and meeting the staff and of course the dogs.

An interesting video on Lead

An interesting video on Lead

I find it staggering that people who want to hunt don't see the value in changing their ammunition from lead to a safer product. We have stopped using lead in petrol, in paint, in our water pipes, but they still want to use lead - ah well, apparently eating it not only kills birds but leads to reduced intelligence in humans......................

NO ONE is asking you to stop legal and genuine hunting, they are just asking you to change your ammunition!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHZGQ8i8AwI

HC

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