Saturday 22 September 2012

It’s one of those most glorious of mornings, and my favourite. Cold but not bitterly, a smattering of frost on the longer grasses, an almost cloudless sky with vivid sunshine and quiet, even the traffic noise which we do get even though the motorway is four miles away, is dim. The leaves are just turning and we are starting to hear autumn bird calls, the plinking of blackbirds – which my Sparrowhawk is fascinated by! The wild Hobby’s are fledged and playing around us, and chasing the house martins, who will be gone by the time we get back. In fact just the sort of day that makes you not want to get up at 1.00am tomorrow morning to catch a 2.00am bus to Heathrow!! Art came cantering up for his breakfast and I have a lesson at 8.30am, he then goes to Sam’s on Monday until we get back from India, so that is one less worry.

 

Holly and Ben are house sitting with the dogs, Shasta who has a bit of a swelling on the inside of her elbow which we are assured is nothing to worry about, is much better and now coming outside for some of the day. She was getting very stressed being cut in all day, plus she was chewing everything.

 

All the birds are doing brilliantly, we were flying the merlin yesterday and a wild Goshawk came over which was a delight to see. The two baby Grey Buzzard Eagles in the second clutch had to come out yesterday as mum is on more eggs and was getting a little stressed by them. One has gone back to Chris O’Donnell, the other Mark is going to train, so for the time being it has gone in with Hare and Azor to grow up a little.

 

All the Lanners are loose now and going well, my Indian Tawny Eagle is now called Plieadies (spelt wrong I think) and she is amazing, I have not seen an eagle come on in such an exciting manner in a long while, we are very very pleased with her.

 

Had a lesson Art this morning, which went OK, he was a little bumptious, but as I had not ridden for about five days that is not surprising.
 
 
Holly, Michele and I along with two Lanners have been filming this week, long tiring and on occasion boring days, but it never fails to amaze me what the birds will do for us. Dawn Run sat on a branch in a tree while a huge camera on a long boom arm can up behind her and filmed the actors with her in the foreground, and then she flew out of frame, Holly was up a step ladder and I was out of camera shot in the distance, although she got so bored with the whole thing that eventually she refused to do the flying bit, so Discovery took over and was very good although she would not deal with the moving camera, however the previous day she had been flying after a four wheeled vehicle with another huge boom arm on the top and the camera filming her as she flew after the car, Holly was in the car, Michele released the falcon and then did a dramatic drop to the ground to get out of shot, and I called her in at the end – it was amazing stuff and the birds were brilliant.

 

Got to finish off stuff, and get packed and so I will write again when I get back on October 4th

 

 

 

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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