Well the weather women were right, it was a little windy last night and today. I don’t have a rain gauge, but I do have a way of telling how much rain fall we have had. In the flying field there is a dip and if that dip has a puddle of water we have had a fair bit of rain, if it becomes a small lake, we have had a lot of rain. It was a small lake this morning!

We had a hunting day today, which went ahead, although I was not sure if it would, Philip and Holly went out with three people (one had cancelled) and Sky, they had a good morning although did not catch anything, but had some great flights, which considering the wind was OK. They then all watched the Peregrine fly at the 1.30 demo, she was amazing, racing round the sky and you could see the pressure of the wind on her wings. Luckily no insane pigeons tried to fly after her today, she ended up coming in high and I hid the lure, and then threw it out and she did a stunning vertical stoop, almost tipping past the point of vertical, she pulled out and came back and grabbed the lure, it was most exciting! We also flew Cool Ground, because he doesn’t seem to do really well on particularly dark nights, which if you think about it is not surprising as there must be snow on the ground most of the winter months and so the light will be reflected, and that should mean that Snowy Owls don’t actually have to manage in as dark nights as do our owls here. Add in the wind factor and we decided it was better to try Woodland Venture the Asian Brown Wood Owl, who is now very good and extremely nocturnal in deep woods in the wild so he should be fine.

There is an owl evening tonight, the weather has eased which will make it much more pleasant. I don’t mind wet days but wet owl evenings are not much fun really. Although the mulled wine does help!

Simon phoned from India about the powerful candler, but it is going to take a little time to get it from the US, so I hope it gets there in time; however we will have to manage without it if it doesn’t. He will be back on Tuesday and we have all missed him greatly. I did not tell him about the Lugger, that can wait until he gets back, but at least we have got a few jobs done while he has been away. Well quite a lot actually!

The owl evening went well, a good crowd and very appreciative, Holly and Adam took one lot round and I did the others. The two owls flew well indoors, Woodland Venture poor lad needs to have a rehearsal, he was confused, but the other two Hemp and Oath did fine and the puppies love to come and say goodbye to people. Nearly had a disaster though, nearly ran out of mulled wine - phew, it was a close thing, had to make somemore!