Saturday 27 April 2013
I know I know, it’s a while since I wrote,
but it has been busy and I have had a lot to do!!! Finally that awful bitter
wind has gone. It has done some damage to the plants around the Centre with
wind burn, but amazingly the daffodils have survived it. I think a couple of
shrubs in the field hedge may have to be pruned right back, but they might survive.
We did – just about! We have had a respite for about ten days week now, I have
to say we were very relieved, particularly as I did a demonstration for the
Cotswold Hunt Point to Point and Country Fair and it is high up on the
Cotswolds and if it had been as windy as it has been I think the birds would
have got home before I did. Luckily the weather was great, a little chilly, but
fair and the birds were brilliant. Zaurak (Lanner Falcon) did his first away
demonstration and was faultless, Theft was good, Hare was excellent, as was
Karis and I was particularly pleased with Bay Middleton because he can be
tricky away from home. I also took Pleiades, whom I did not fly, but she
travelled well and came out of the boxes very well. She has not been flying as
well as she was in the cold wind, but we are working on it.
The breeding goes on apace. We now have two
baby lanners, one of the white-faced scops owls went up the Charlie, the other
was not well for a while, but has recovered and is doing much better. The Asian
Brown Wood Owl hatched, although we did lose the second egg. The first Steppe
is out and doing very well, the Savigny’s from the second clutch has gone back
with mum and dad and they are pleased to have it. The baby Bald Eagle is doing
wonderfully well with the Verreaux’s Eagles, the baby Tawny Eagle is back with
the Steppes. We tried him back with the Grey Buzzard Eagles but they would not
take him, they were still in incubation mode, although they are in disgrace
because they broke two of their eggs, which was very disappointing. However the
other pair have now finally laid, it will be interesting to see if they are
fertile.
As I write the second Steppe Eagle is
starting to hatch and so is the Condor, which is very exciting, both Holly and
I will be very relieved when it is out safely.
I went plant shopping and bought a ton of
plants with my birthday and Christmas vouchers, and have just spent the last
two hours tidying up my courtyard, and the last few days weeding and planting,
I still have a few to go and I hope the bloody rabbits don’t eat them. Oh and
two days ago there was a Roe Deer buck in the field, that was a sight to see,
and I heard my first cuckoo yesterday, it only cuckooed 1.5 times but it was
there.
I was sent a link to a Wildlife programme
made in Wales a couple of days ago, it features a Dr Rhys Jones, who works at
Cardiff University. He is a herpetologist supposedly, but does this programme
that rescues wildlife, or in the case of the Kestrel in the film, fails to
rescue wildlife. All of us were incensed watching it, Firstly it was obviously
desperately thin and he should immediately have taken it to an expert as he is
most definitely not one on birds of prey, it should have been put in the warm
and on fluids, through the night and it might have had a chance of pulling
through. As it was he did none of that, at least not on the TV, instead he fed
it mealworms, which it could hardly manage. He also did a bit on a snake in a
shed, it turned out to be a gravid Grass Snake, so what does he do for the
camera, but handle it until he upsets it enough that it goes into defence mode
and squirts out a smelly fluid which they do if upset, and then it pretended to
play dead. These people who deliberately upset wildlife just to look good on
camera really piss me off. Dr Jones you need to come here and learn what to do
with sick or injured birds of prey before you touch another one. I would be
happy to teach you.
On our side all the injured wild birds that
we had had in and that had been in a fit state to survive have done so and all
have been released back the wild by the various people who brought them in. We
did not upset them, wave them in front of camera’s we just did our job
properly.
Linda and I went shopping at some mall near Bristol, the name escapes me, its really frustrating when you want jersey's and all the womens clothes are for summer and not a jersey to be seen, or at least not one I would be seen dead in. Even though it was bloody freezing outside, so I ended up buying three men's jerseys, which are cheaper as well! I also bought for the first time in 15 years new knickers!!! I bought 15 pairs to celebrate.
However the nicest sight we have seen recently is Hemp with a baby. Holly and I decided that as she had been so good with all the eggs we needed her to sit for us, we would try her with a chick, so she has a baby Spectacled Owl, and does she love it - oh yes, she thinks it is wonderful, it is a sight to behold.
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