Friday 19 February 2010
Light, there is something very special about the light in the autumn, winter and spring here in England, it is I suppose to do with being so far north and low sun. Today the light has been quite beautiful, and by the last demonstration, when it caught Hemp, our Eurasian Eagle Owl as she was sitting on the centre perch in the flying ground, it was stunning beyond belief, and so was she. I think it is one of the things I missed when I was in the states, the light in South Carolina, particularly in the summer was very harsh, I also never saw the deep velvet blue of a clear evening that we get here.It has been a long week, but we have achieved a great deal. Mozart’s new block has been a little neglected, although Jan arrived the day before yesterday and did all the second coat of magnolia. We will stain it next week if the weather allows, and then get the sand and wall perches in, Zoomesh and it is done! However Barn 2 is
finished and the flower beds around it have been pruned to the ground by me!! If whatever the plants are don’t like being pruned, I think it will be the end for them, but they were all badly overgrown, and so if they like being pruned to within an inch of their lives, they will have a great time this spring! It is all raked and tidied around the aviary and to our great surprise and pleasure a visitor sent me a picture of ‘two of your eagles mating’ and I imagined it would be the Verreaux’s who are inclined to wait until visitors are around before partaking! However it was the Bateleur Eagles, which is wonderful, so we quickly built some nests, with the help of some of the children visitors, and I put one in with them, they are already playing with it!The drainage is going well, it’s a messy job and at the end of it there will be nothing much to see, but if we can get the paths drained and dry that will be a major step. The Eagle Barn was given a normal rake, we can’t get in there and give it a major clean now until after the breeding season. The small falcon block has had a good spring clean as has the Kites (again!). So we are up to scratch with most of the enclosures in time for the breeding season. Add to that it bloody snowed yesterday and we ended up with about four inches, and then last night a hard freeze. Amazingly we had a good number of visitors today which was lovely. We were not sure what we would be able to fly for them because of the snow, but in the end we did brave two of the falcons, who did not want to land on the snow, but managed!! The Harris Hawks did well as did the owls. Linda came over to
get pictures of the snowy owl in the snow, and I hope managed to get something. Hemp was a star and the only bird who did not mind the snow, in fact landed in it with no worries and even sat on one of the huge snowballs we had rolled to get some grass to show for the falcons!Here is hoping that more snow does not come, we have had enough thanks, and it is not good for business! And that a ton of people visit this year to see us.
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