Thursday 29 April 2010
Woodland Venture died yesterday, or to be more accurate Neil came over and put him down. It was touch and go if he would pull through but we all wanted him home to see if he could manage. He could not. So before he became too ill again, Adam and I agreed that we would ask Neil to come over. We did not want to take him to Swindon, we wanted him here, in his own aviary that he loved, he was remarkably cheerful, although showing signs of deteriorating again. It is always so miserable to have to make the decision to put any bird or animal down and Woodland Venture was universally liked by all the staff here and I suspect all the staff at Great Western Referrals as well, he had charm, was like all the Asian Brown Wood Owls, stunning to look at and Adam had done a great job on training him as he was not easy to start with. Adam has planted a tree for him in the Centre, and he will come home and be buried in the wood where he loved to fly. We let him go for a Post Mortem, because it is so important to know why birds die, and the information learned can save others in the future, it also sometimes relieves one’s mind because then you know that the choice made was the right one and in this case it was indeed. I will do a stone for him, I have to do one for Lupin and Arabis, although I did moan at Adam because the O’s are the most difficult to do!!

It rained today, but we got off lightly and were still able to do the flying, and we had two really nice people on the Hawk Experience Day, which was good and the day went well, the other two people never turned up and did not even bother to phone, so they will find booking a little tricky now, unless there is a very good excuse. It was good to see the rain and I think the plants were pleased, OK so its not easy to see if plants are pleased, but I bet they were!! Sadly I bet the weeds were as well, we have been speculating if we could persuade people that ground elder is the new marijuana! Because we have a ton of it!

I have to borrow Tony Buckland’s Landrover Defender tomorrow, so that means my van turns into a Landrover for three days, yippee!! I am giving four demonstrations at the Falconers Fair at Newport in Shropshire over the Bank Holiday, so it will be a trek up each day. The birds do much better if you can get them home each night, plus it means I don’t have to ask one of the staff to dog sit and better still I don’t have to camp – I hate camping!

The place is looking wonderfully green and the lilac outside my house is coming out. The wood is full of wood anemones, bugle, bluebells, cuckoo pint and many other wild flowers which is great to see. Mike got the floor down in the new weighing room today, Gordon had given it to us and it looks great. We need to get the kitchen units next week, and then the wall can come down and we will be in business, its very exciting. We will paint it this weekend. And with help from Jan, Sue and Terry we finished staining the front and side of the shop, which looks great and the new signs are up.

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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.

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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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