We had a lovely day yesterday, we were filming four short films for Autumn Watch on identifying various British raptors and the confusian factor. The birds did brilliantly and were very happy to work with Kate Humble and she is a complete natural with the birds aswell, which always makes for an easier job. Alex the producer was great to work with as was Kate and the rest of the crew, the weather was kind and we got enough and more for four two minute films done and dusted by 4.15pm. The visitors had an extra bonus watching us film for Autumn Watch and the wild birds did not let us down either The two young hobby's who we are pretty sure must have been in a nest pretty close by came screaming in several times chasing each other and some Jakcdaws just for fun. The buzzards soared over on a regular basis showing their flight skills to great advantage and an insane Heron was convinced that it should be joining the demonstrations, it followed the eagle and damn nearly landed in the tree with him. Then it made several abortive attempts at landing in the pond. At one point it did land in a tree in the Hawk Walk which must have surprised the trained birds enormously and eventually it horrified the Snowy Owl Cool Ground as it circled the field low for the umpteenth time!

The nice thing about filming here for crews is that everything is close by - birds, nice backgrounds, staff and not forgetting loos and a nice warm cafe, so it makes for a comfortable day, particularly if the weather is good which it was. The only slight problem we had was with the Barn Owl who is endlessly noisy which drove Simon the sound man nuts!! So after he had finished his flying bit we fed him mouse after mouse to shut him up, it took six mice to do the trick!! I suspect he will not be flying for a couple of days after that!

The only down side of working on any project throughout the day is that all those other jobs still need to get done, so there were a fair few birds to fly after the last demonstration, but they all got done and all are coming on nicely. The staff and volunteers worked tirelessly to make sure that we were all very tidy before the filming and the path to the Education Centre is now back to its old self again.

Hard Tackle is well in his moulting aviary, in fact I think he lied about his pulled wing muscle as he is flying pretty damn well in what is a huge aviary for him! He obviously thought he had done his years work several days before I thought he had.

I am looking forward to seeing Autumn Watch this year and seeing how the birds look in the films, it will be fun to see.