Sunday 28 November 2010
Sunday night - It is cold, very cold, in fact it would be fair to say that it is extremely cold! My knees are not quite at the stage where they are raw, but getting that way. And I know I should cover them but I only really like wearing a skirt. I will have to do something however if it is going to stay like this for long.

The Incubation Workshop is over, the participants worked very hard and I hope had a good time as well as learning a great deal, I was rushing around with Mark to make sure that the rest of the stuff here at the Centre got done. Simon rushed around making sure that the birds were fed, we were OK and the workshop had a seemingly endless supply of incubated eggs to study and take apart.

Paul had put in a new Swedish heater, it eats pellets of sawdust and it is staggeringly efficient. It was not working on Wednesday, but fired up on Thursday and kept the Education Room toasty warm. We used it yesterday for the Half Day because it never got above freezing at any point, so they did the handling inside, which made it much more pleasant.

We have grounded Gypsy King as he is not dealing with the cold well and I don't want to push him. We are having to keep a really vigilant eye on the smaller birds such as Katana (barn owl) and Eager (Long-eared Owl) because they are losing weight very fast in this cold. We have also had in two injured birds with another one due in tomorrow. Dusky Emperor seems to love the weather though and she is flying superbly, which is great. The falcons are coping and all are inside almost all the time now. Richard is looking at the heated perching again, we sort of got caught on the hop with this very early cold snap.

Most of my guests leave tomorrow, some are gone and Susie and Pat are being driven to Gatwick by Adam, leaving at 6.00 am tomorrow, with Jon leaving the following day. We have two days left of this month and then we close although the experience days and owl evenings continue until Christmas.

Jan is off to New York for a short trip, she is going to see my sister Dinah and have lunch so she will miss our first closed day breakfast!! Anabel is still with us and working hard, she was very helpful when Holly, John and Adam were doing the course and has been painting the new feed drawer - ad nauseam!

I went over to ride Dante last Monday, it was interesting!! He is not yet ready to come home, and I think he may be a little too keen for me, he is blissfully comfortable to ride, but he has so much potential and I don't think I am going to give him what he needs which is lots of work and lots of jumping. We will see. I miss Henry, but have been very glad not to have to worry about him in this last hectic week.

The two Owl Evenings just gone went very well, lovely guests, and although very cold, the birds flew brilliantly and looked wonderful.

Its been so weird to see a sprinkling of snow with autumn leaves falling on top of it. We are supposedly due to have more snow this coming week, but I could do with it waiting until after the 18th really. Oh well I guess it is winter after all said and done!

Monday morning - talk about frustrated. I got up early to see off my american friends, and then walked the dogs around the field in the dark. I heard water running, which with the amount of frost we are having I should not have heard. So I put the dogs back inside and walked up the road first to see if it was anything to do with my water supply, then I walked down the road to check. On the road at the end of my field I could hear the water and as I neared the corner, I was slipping all over the place on the ice. So I located the leak, which has to be a water main as it is gushing out and walked or rather slipped home to report it. Ah you might say, how very responsible of you! Well yes, but you try doing it! At before 7.00am there is no one to report to. Now Severn Trent Water Board do have an emergency number, or it is laughingly called that, however first of all you have to hear how to thaw out your own pipes and a whole load of other non emergency information before they give you yet another emergency number, which has the same bloody answer phone message, and then finally puts you through to a number which is not answered - well done Severn Trent, first class emergency service.

So then I looked up Local Police online, well that was about as flaming useful as the damn water board! I got a list of phone numbers of police stations that were all closed, and eventually I dialed 999, which is not something I wanted to do, however it is dangerous down there and there is going to be an accident unless there are some warnings put out. Well! The bloody woman who answered needs shooting that is for sure, she put me through to the police, which is what I needed I guess and one can only hope that they will do something about it before there is an accident. One does wonder why the emergency services complain about too many 999 calls when they don't give you any numbers that you can call something like this in 24/7. I seem to remember that at least one local police station was manned 24 hours a day, I guess that does not happen now.

One thing is for sure, my new bottom pond will be full for the first time - pretty damn soon!!
Saturday 20 November 2010
I have always wondered why someone could get as famous as Anne Robinson by being as unpleasant and rude as she is, its a sad reflection on public taste! A good friend of mine for some insane reason best known to herself, decided that she wanted to be on the Weakest Link show, I am delighted to say that I turn it off as soon as I see it come on, however there is no accounting for taste!! But I was seriously horrified when she told me what the programme researchers had asked her when she was invited for an audition - 'They said they are going to be absolutely horrible and can I cope and they asked if I have any physical attributes that Anne might make fun of'. Can you credit it, the woman would make fun and rude comments to you if you had any physical problems - nice!!! Just confirms my thoughts that she is a particularly unpleasant example of humanity!

We had our staff/members/volunteer Owl Evening on Thursday, it was all going well, we finished the day, I collected Nettle's medicine - she is now a lot better - well enough to join the owl evening hog roast anyway! I also took the fifth sick injured wild bird to Argus Vets, another buzzard with the same mouth infection, its getting worrying I have to say. Anyway got back, all the staff were having a cuppa in the cafe and I made the mulled wine, then fed and groomed Henry, did some emails, checked the dogs, and as I was just putting on a clean jersey I heard Adam say there were problems with the lights. Well to cut a long story short, and three runs up to the house to get all the power back on again, I phoned Richard, who's comments were not repeatable, and who said he was on his way, I think he broke some Landrover records from Malvern to here!

All the guests were given guided tours by Robin, Holly, Mark and Adam, and Richard and I sorted out the lights. Two of the underground pits were swimming pools, you could have kept damn goldfish in there! So with bailing and revamping the connections, it was sorted and yesterday Richard came and with working on the pits hopefully has solved the problem.

It was a lovely day yesterday, sunny but brisk, I had a great ride, and Henry was very good, he has now gone to stay with Micaela for a few weeks while we get the Incubation workshop out of the way next week and finish off the season. It means that when Dante gets back I will be able to give him some time before they are both together again. I am going over to the school to ride Dante on Monday, that might be fun! The Owl Evening last night was amazing, it was one day off a full moon, and there was a slight but intensifying mist, so the lights caught the mist of water droplets in the columns of light that rise across the flying ground, that and the moonlight made for a very special if somewhat cold evening. But then Winter Owl Evenings are supposed to be cold. Tonight it is raw and damp, but the lights are on and looking good and Mark and I have it tonight.

Three hundred and fifty five plants were put in by us and Peter Dowles team on Monday and Tuesday, they look a little sad at the moment, as plants generally do not normally look their best at this time of the year, but if all goes well the gardens are going to look great next season. I am looking forward to it. Already the Snowdrops are showing tiny shoots in various places. Having said that I still have some roses hanging on. Plants are such amazing things.

Oh and as an end note, well done Dell, for some reason my new computer keyboard would not work a couple of days ago, all I got was a black screen with the words Keyboard Failure, press F2!! A little tricky if the keyboard won't work Dell, you might want to look at that command!
Wednesday 17 November 2010
The carpet is now clean - well it was before the rain that came today, and I have finished rearranging the furniture! The stove glue arrived today and in about three years I might just find the time to glue the bloody rope back into the door. In the meantime, what has happened. Dante went off on Monday to be backed or re backed more correctly ( that means broken in to ride) he walked into the trailer like a dream I could not believe it, he was good as gold and I have since heard that he is doing well, has been ridden is very good, does not buck or misbehave, and is good near the road and apparently does not mind pigs!!! However they said he was quite keen and forward going, at which point I said that would be a change because when Henry gets upset he is very backward going - at speed!!

Henry was upset to be left alone so I gave him a very good grooming on Tuesday, I had meant to ride him, but as usual things conspired against me, not the least that Nettle was ill. Alice from Eden Tanners came out to vaccinate Henry and so was able to look at Nettle as well. It looks like it is the same thing as last time, being sick and a very high temperature. She is a little better today, but I think we will take a trip to Ledbury with her tomorrow as I am not happy yet about her improvement.

Yesterday was also a very odd day and very properly autumnal, it was dense fog early in the morning, but an hour later it went and we had lovely clear sunshine (Monday was perfectly glorious), then the fog rolled in again, pretty much at every demonstration time, and it was thick enough that we could not see the hedge at the bottom of the field, so no falcon flying happened. It was one of those days where you can see your breath steaming in front of you, the air has a sharp damp bite to it and a strong scent of autumn, you know the sun is there, but the fog densely hides it like a present. I love those days. It was bitterly cold on Sunday, Monday and most of Tuesday night until the rain came. Today has been fairly miserable weather wise, poor Henry was very damp by the time I brought him in. However a couple of carrots cheered him up.

Our elderly female Eleonora's falcon died last night, she has been slowly fading away over the last few days, we kept her in and warm and she seemed content, but last night was her final one. For many years she laid, but never a fertile egg, which was a dreadful shame as they are wonderful birds and superb flyers. They are the only raptor that summers and breeds on islands and then migrates to another for the winter. I will miss her and her extremely loud voice.

We now have our own personal face book page, so if anyone wants to be a friend, it is Icbp Newent, and already people have shown interest and there is a lovely video of Greeves hovering last summer. I want to find the Utube one of Sedge small enough to fall down the burrowing owl holes! Talking of which the young burrowing owls have all fledged, she managed five babies!! And their enclosure has just had a good clean and more sand put in, so they are very pleased about that! And they all look very smart in there. We move to cleaning, painting and rewiring the owl courtyard next in the scheme of things.
Its all a bit hectic for the next week and a half, with three owl evenings, then Susie and Pat arriving from the US on Sunday, as well as Nikita from India, all staying in the house. Two more arriving on Tuesday and the course starting Wed - Fri, followed by two owl evenings!! Wow I am going to be exhausted. But its all worth it to be home again.
Saturday 13 November 2010
Six years ago today, I was packing up birds with 30 or so friends and volunteers, the CITES team were down here, two vets were here, we had just really got going with boxing up 190 of my best and most beloved birds to make the mammoth trip to South Carolina to start up life anew. Six wonderful black Labradors came with me, and Annie Millar came for the first month and a bit to help me get sorted and settled. It was an exhausting and stressful day, and it ended with even more exhaustion and stress the other end as we unpacked the birds. But that is another story and one I plan on writing this winter!

Suffice it to say that I met and renewed some stunning friendships in South Carolina and elsewhere in the US, and those will last my lifetime, I also met or renewed aquaintences who treated me appallingly badly and those too I will never forget! However I will always be in huge debt to the various friends and colleagues who helped and supported me to get back to here. As I write I look over my property, knowing my staff are getting ready for an experience day, Jan has come in to get some biscuits for the dogs, the sun is out, the pond is glistening at the bottom of the field, the remaining leaves are blazing golds and browns and yellows, the field is still a vivid green apart from the myriad holes the damn horses made in it yesterday and coffee time will happen at the appropriate time.

Although my ill-fated sojourn to the US failed it has made me appreciate all the more what I had, and what I have now, so regardless of the hard work and the stresses and strains, today is a good day memories and all!

The owl evening went very well last night, the weather was kind and the rain and clouds left, the stars came out, Robin did one guided tour and I did the other and Adam and Robin and I did the flying demonstrations. Richard moved on a little more with the electrics and the lights worked brilliantly. Cool Ground, (Snowy Owl) looks amazing as he crosses them!

I am now going to shampoo my office carpet as the wood burning stove is in and there are marks to prove all the hard work that Mike Turner did to make it all work safely and securely. Now talking about the wood burning stove, I cannot recommend the people I bought mine from, they may do good stoves I have yet to discover that, it seems OK, but their customer service afterwards is appalling, so watch out. Woodburning Stoves Limited.Com is the company to look out for. My stove arrived, all fine and dandy, we followed the instructions to put it in, and doing the first fire to the flaming letter! I had a little nice dry kindling, some bits of wood from the old quarantine quarters (three years old at least) and one nice dry two year old oak log, that I had known the tree it was from! We turned the airflow down so it did not burn too hot as instructed, so imagine my concern when I opened the doors after about 1.5 hours into its first lighting and just about 24 hours after it had arrived to find that all the rope that is around the doors as a seal had stuck to the inside of the stove and pulled off. Not surprisingly I phoned the company to ask if this was usual. I was instantly and I mean instantly blamed for burning green timber and thus tar had pulled it off. I pointed out that I knew all the timber I had burned intimately and none was green plus the damn thing had only been alight for less than two hours. I was told I would have to buy stove rope glue, I asked why I would have to buy it, why would they not send it as this presumably is not supposed to happen on day one. I was told they don't have it, I pointed out that they manufactured the stove and so must have the glue around, I was told yes they did manufacture it, so why no glue I asked - because they are made in China I was told, so you do not manufacture it then I stated! You can see this was not going well and at no time had there even been a smell of an apology.

I was told that I would have to get the glue because everyone had to maintain their stoves and this was a part of it, I said I had not expected to have to do maintenance work on a stove that was 24 hours old!! I finally got an apology, of sorts, but no help. After the owl evening I wrote a complaining but polite email stating that I thought their customer care needed to be looked at, among other things! I pointed out that I dealt with probably more customers than they did and that if something I was involved in went wrong in less than 24 hours, the very first thing I would do would be to apologise and in my case I would have told me (I know complicated) that I would send a pack of glue in the post.

But not a bit of it, apparently I was complaining about something entirely insignificant, although I now cannot use the stove until the glue that I have to buy arrives, and they can't understand why I am upset. I wrote back and said forget it, and perhaps their customer relations was a scottish thing - well I know, but I was pissed off by this point, and still am!! So be warned, don't use them if you hope for any sort of customer help in after sales as you are doomed, they don't know what the word means!!

OK, back to the carpet!
Wednesday 10 November 2010
It was a glorious day yesterday, I managed to get a couple of hours off and take Henry out for a ride, and it was lovely, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Today was supposed to be very wet, so it was good to take the opportunity. All birds are well and flying fine, and the five day course is going well, they had a lovely day to go hawking yesterday morning which was lucky. Of course if we were very mean we would have sent them out on the telemetry search in the rain that was supposed to happen today, but it didn't rain so we did if you see what I mean.

My office looks like a bomb has hit it, I am having a wood burning stove put in at my sisters instigation as she does not like to think of me cold which is very nice of her and I am or will be eternally grateful. This is a pretty cold house I have to say, and it does get very cold even with the heating on. However I had a very nice wooden fireplace in my office, and so putting in a wood burner would have probably set the house on fire, and as I love this house beyond reason, however cold it can get, I did not want that to happen. So a stone fireplace is going in, but needless to say it is not a clean job! The wood burner arrived today and I am praying that all will work well as there are people coming to stay on Sunday week. I am hoping that I can get the office painted as well, before they come - nothing like a bit of pressure I always say!!

My lip is getting better, Dusky Emperor decided to bite a lump out of it a few days ago, I had a word with her about it, but had to ask Adam to finish the demonstration that day, as I was bleeding profusely. Lips seem to heal in a rather odd way and drinking hot tea has been an interesting experience, however gin and tonic is not a problem, thank goodness! And on that note my Plum Vodka and Plum Gin is looking and smelling delicious, and no I have not tried it yet, I am saving it for Christmas - at least I am trying to.

I collected the second lot of eggs for the incubation workshop the day before yesterday and Simon is working really hard getting all the correct incubation done so everyone learns as much as they can from the course, shame more zoos are not coming (I might harp on about the lack of interest from zoos for some considerable time to come I think!)

Of course Simon does get upset when Richard is here because invariably the power goes off - not his fault I hasten to add, but the fault of years of electrics being added over time and the whole thing needed a huge sort out. But it is quite funny to see Simon's expression when Richards Landrover arrives! Talking of which, my Landrover is going well and I love it, although the CD player is not impressed as I suspect the suspension is not what CD players like.

We moved the damn Burrowing Owl mounds, so they are done and the grass seed that we planted - OK Adam planted on the friday before last is coming up, who says you can't plant grass in November! The new plants for the gardens are supposed to be coming next week, oh goody, more digging!
Sunday 7 November 2010
Its been an eventful week, the mammogram was as delicious as ever, various female friends not only agreed at my (stolen) description but suggested that if men's testicles were treated in the same fashion a different approach would probably have been adopted by now!

My new Landrover had some interesting behaviours, a whining noise when I turned the engine of and at one point it lost power, I was informed that was quite normal!! Not sure about that, however it has been behaving ever since. The autumn is definitely in full swing and we have leaves everywhere, it always seems like such a pointless task to collect them when there are so many more to come, however it is fun to scuff through them, even at my age.

On thursday I started the day with a lovely ride in the morning on Henry and got lost in the woods, but we had had a good time and it was amazingly warm although windy. My Barbary Falcon who has been flying superbly was even better the day before and Linda took some cracking photos, however on Thursday when it was hellish windy and we were all looking forward to her flight as she loves the wind, we all watched her rapidly disappear. Simon, Adam and I leapt into the Landrover and off we went down wind. We followed her to Gloucester and then lost the signal, we drove around for about another hour or so and then decided to get back, finish off the day and regroup. So back home, moved horses, put birds away, finished feeding the owls, put the dogs in the house and locked up. Adam and Holly drove off towards Ledbury, Malvern and then Worcester, Simon and I went M50 Evesham and then towards Oxford, Mark and Robin did Tewkesbury and then towards Stow on the Wold. We probably started out at about 5.30pm and none of us had a signal by 8.30, we were all a bit miserable. Then Simon and I had chosen the Cirencester road out of Bourton on the Water and as I was driving and he was map reading and the receiver was on the seat, there came a bleep, it is the most wonderful noise when you have not heard one for about six hours. We phoned Holly and Adam and told them to go home, we asked them to phone Robin and Mark and we started to track her down, it was extremely dark and still very windy. We finally ended up at Farmington Quarry and Robin and Mark caught up with us. As we were standing in the road checking the signal a truck pulled up and a very nice chap asked (not surprisingly!) what we were doing, we explained and he said it would not be good to go on the land in the direction we were looking as it was full of Partridges, so he kindly called the keepers and owners and the keepers met us (by this time it must have been close to 9.00pm) they took us a little closer and we reckoned that was about all we could do that night, the signal was saying she was up in a tree, so we agreed to meet at 7.00am the next morning and home we all went.

Simon and I got up early and got to the quarry at about 6.35am, we still had a good signal and we triangulated the bleep so we were happier about exactly where she was and phoned Olly the keeper, however at 6.45am she moved! So off we all went tracking again, and luckily the roads went where we needed to go. Olly left after a while, he was really helpful in telling us the lie of the land and Simon and continued about half a mile, we got a signal on near and took off over the fields and there she was on a house in a steep valley. I walked towards her swinging the lure, whistling and tripping over pheasants! As I stood there on the hill outside a lovely house an upstairs window opened and a chap called Richard asked me very politely what I was doing, I said I have a falcon on your roof and I am trying to get it down, 'Oh' he said, 'that must have been what I saw fly past when I was on the loo!' yes I agreed! Why were you flying it here, he asked quite rightly, I wasn't I replied, I lost her 30 miles away yesterday and she came here on the wind. Luckily she came down at that point and so we parted and I and Simon went back to the car with a huge sigh of relief and big grins on our faces, tripping over yet more pheasants on the way, it would be a great place to fly my goshawk!! We worked out that we had driven 250 miles and used up 39 man hours to find her, but it was worth it.

I was glad to get her back as it was Bonfire night and we were having a small firework party, so we needed to get organised. Plus we had a Hawk Experience Day as well as the normal daily stuff. I made a Guy in the afternoon, Simon donated the jeans, and I added a jersey which was a vile colour and made his head out of an old T Shirt. Adam built a stunningly good fire with all the rubbish wood from the workshop and yard, John helped as did Simon, it really was a great bonfire. I made mulled wine and put some sausages in the oven. Over the week there had been talk about marshmallows being toasted and we had a great idea that we could clean up an rake and cook 16 at a time!! However the fire was so good we could not get close enough to do it! At some point chocolate coated Marshmallows had been mentioned and Sue had a chocolate fountain, which she lent us.

The recipe said you have to thin the chocolate with water or cooking oil and Adam had the bright idea of using Baileys, which I thought was brilliant, so I had got lots of Galaxy chocolate, and a bottle of Baileys. Well he and John and I were in the kitchen getting it ready, Adam took over the chocolate melting as he said I was doing it wrong, it was very thick, so he duly added the baileys, however that did not do the trick, so we added a bit of cooking oil as instructed and that was where things started to go wrong! The chocolate sort of curdled, it went a very dark brown, the oil refused to mix in and it was never going to work in a chocolate fountain, so we started again! Then Adam had a bright idea, he would roll the now very thick and somewhat oddly textured chocolate in something and make truffles, so did I have some hundreds and thousands, well, surprise, no I didn't, I offered him bisto gravy powder, but he turned it down, luckily we found some cocoa powder! He put the mix into one of my T Towels and rung out the oil!!! The T towel looked like nothing on earth, at least nothing that I can repeat, after he had scraped the chocolate out! He and John made about 12 and I then called it a day and asked John to go and throw the rest in the hedge and perhaps a badger would enjoy it later that night. I managed to drop most of the truffles in the deep freeze, we tried one and I have to say that you could taste the Baileys, but there was not an inkling of Galaxy taste left!. Adam made a second batch with just chocolate and oil, you have no idea how much oil you have to use to get it to flow, it sort of puts you off.

By this time staff and neighbours were arriving, so we took out the mulled wine, sausages, chocolate fountain and put them under Adam's gazebo in the car park, turned on the lights that Richard had put up to light the trees, it was of course by now raining non stop!! Holly brought Marsh Mallows and Maceroons - they were very good, John and family brought pizza and already cooked baked potatoes, and so we celebrated Guy Fawkes night in the rain, with a stunning fire, great food and good company. The fireworks were good and lasted all of three minutes!! It finished in time for me to go to sleep in the new David Attenborough series that I really wanted to watch!
Tuesday 2 November 2010
Well the first two owl evenings have gone very well. Richard's wife Janet help with the hog roast, thank you Janet! Richard made sure that the new lighting that he built worked and it did and the birds looked wonderful in it. I did the guided tour on the Friday and Holly and I did them on the Saturday. Adam's owls and Adam did very well, Holly's owls and Holly did very well, my owls did very well but I fell over the bloody Burrowing Owl's mounds - twice! Consequently they are going to be moved this week, they make life too tricky and we are all constantly worrying about tripping over them and not concentrating on the commentaries. Cool Ground, the Snowy Owl looks particularly wonderful in the new lighting, but it works well on all of them. Thanks a million Richard!! Shop next!!!
I have to go for a mammogram today, oh goody, my absolute favourite thing, only a cervircal smear fills me with more joy. Someone once said that to experience a mammogram all you have to do is lie on a nice cold hard (smooth) concrete floor and gently roll the front wheel of your car over your breast and leave it there!! And they were right! Actually I would much rather go for a ride on my horse - much much rather!
I have my new (secondhand - who in their right minds would by a new car that is instantly worth less as soon as you get in it) car. It is blue, very nice, goes well, has three seats in the front and two in the back and we have carpeted the back for the dogs, two steps to get in and its a Landrover Defender 90, what a surprise. I love it, next we have to get the trailer sprayed the same blue to match it and have logos and stuff put on and we will be ready for the show season next year. Although I have to say I am always a little dubious about putting my phone number on there in case someone wants to complain about my driving, not that that has ever happened of course. We still await the Range Rover..........................

Sunday was a good day, most of the school children had stayed away, we were very busy with them during the week, but back to more mature visitors on Sunday. Holly had the day off to give her father a nice birthday, and Adam and Mark were off, so John came in and helped with the demonstrations, I could not have managed without him, he and Josh and Zoe did sterling work, and we go a fair bit done too.

I had to drive to near Witney yesterday to collect 180 eggs for the incubation workshop that starts on November 24th ( and that is only the first batch, there are two more to collect! I have to say I have been very disappointed by the lack of interest from most of the zoos, all of whom I might add could probably do with a course like this, and no interest at all from the bird of prey world, who obviously know it all already! This is an amazing workshop with huge opportunities to learn, I sent Simon on it to Spain last year and he raved about it. Ah well there is none so queer as folk as they say. I put on a pair of shoes to go as I was not sure the hatchery would appreciate my wellies, now I have hardly worn them at all, OK I have probably had them about 15 years, but I have hardly worn them - they fell to bits, literally! I had to throw them away can you believe it. I have to do something about my clothes in the next year or so, Charlie, don't say a word, the problem is that I hate, loath and detest shopping for clothes.
Barn Three is getting its major clean and paint at the moment, and it is looking great I have to say. Nest to do is the Zoo Mesh on the Owl Courtyard, and a repaint, then Barn 2 to clean and touch up. I hope to get most of the barns finished and with their food drawers in (thanks to Tom and Mike) by Christmas, but we have decided to clean and repaint the Kites Barn on February 28th, and it should last as nice and clean and tidy until about Valentines Day, by which time the walls will be covered again!

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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