Wednesday 7 July 2010
Sometimes you get a phone call that you don’t want, which I got on Sunday night, a neighbour phoned to say he had found a dead bird and it had a ring on, and he thought it might be ours. Of course it was Papyrus my very lovely Savigny’s Eagle Owl. I had been expecting him to have not survived, but nevertheless it was not what I had hoped to hear. I drove over and collected him, he must have been alive until Saturday night and by the looks of his body, he had been doing OK, but something had killed him and I suspect that it was crows or ravens, it did not look like a raptor kill, nor a fox kill. Adam and I buried him in the field yesterday, close to one of the perches he liked to fly to. At least now I will not think that every phone call in the evening might be a sighting of him. I will miss him.

As I was walking round the field with the dogs first thing this morning I saw a heron take off from the pond, it appeared to have something in its beak and I wondered if it was one of the ducklings that an idiotic mallard mother has on the pond. It dropped whatever it had half way up the field, so I walked up there to find a fish! I did not know I still had fish in the pond. I think it was a Rudd, it had red fins, anyway I took it back to the pond and it disappeared, so I guess it was OK. It survived being caught and dropped, which is amazing really.

Otherwise things continue, we have a French party tomorrow and all 44 of them are having some handling and flying of birds, which should be interesting. We are also filming something for the BBC although I am not sure what at this point. We caught up the baby Harris Hawk today, it is hard down and ready to train and it’s a girl!! Hooray! She will take over from the two males that are now grounded for moulting, Pretender and Bay Middleton.

Cremorne is being a little difficult at the moment, I am not sure what is wrong but she has got more aggressive and temperamental and so I am spending time carrying her around and trying to get her less problematical, here is hoping that it will work!!

The brick cutter came yesterday, so the bricks will be ready for the plinth for the extremely golden eagle statue and that will start being built next week. We are excited that it will look better (which would not be difficult!) and then I have to work out how to tone it down a little so that it is fractionally less golden, which is a challenge I have to say.

I am sure that I had something to bitch about lined up, but it is late and I am damned if I can remember what it was!! Ah well, another time.

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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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