Monday, 19 November 2012
Flipping Henry, another Owl Evening is over
and done, where does the time go, and it was another cool night, and a busy one
– full to bursting, so it was fun, not that they aren’t all fun.
So what has happened in the week, John,
Simon and Adam had a successful time at Duncombe, they finished all they should
have done and helped Charlie along the way I hope. They all came back very
excited about the place and the barns and the setting and everything about it.
John then discovered that his albino crow
had escaped while he was away, he and Lisa were devastated, he had the next
morning off and searched and searched, but no joy. Adam and Simon were off that
day, Adam went to a free course in London that did not turn out to be what he
had hoped, and sadly had Tash’s bike stolen off the roof of his car while it
was parked at the station. Simon saw us all working away getting ready to pack
up birds for the trip up and decided that he wanted to help, which was very
useful I have to say, because it was a tough and long day.
We had decided to catch up and box the
birds in the afternoon as we were leaving at 4.45am the following morning and
it would have been dangerous to the birds to catch them up in the dark. So all
the boxes were ready, clean and new carpet on the floor. The two trailers
hitched up and ready, and Colin Pennycuick who had contacted me previously
about taking tracings of various bird wings arrived for lunch and got his paper
and pens at the ready. We caught up 72 birds and took wing measurements from
over half, we coped them all, wormed them and gave them all Critical Care to
cope with the trip, boxed them up and put them in the various trailers, and
those that were going up in a van were put quietly in the stock room. We
started with the Steller’s and worked down from there, ending up with the
Burrowing Owls. It was only one day out of 8 years ago that we were packing up
189 birds to go to the US which was a little uncanny, and a few of the birds
were ones that had done that trip and back again! We are pretty efficient at
this sort of thing now I have to say.
So I then did the horse, took the dogs
round the field, had a shower and we all went up to the Yew Tree for a meal to
say goodbye to Anabelle. We had clubbed together and bought her a bike that
Adam had chosen, so that was going up too!
I left before the others (as usual) because
I was getting up at 4.00am – so was Anabelle, but she is much younger than I
am! 4.00am dawned, or rather did not dawn as it was dark and very foggy –
great, perfect for a five hour drive. David and Mark Kay arrived at 4.15am and
by 4.25 we had loaded up the last boxes and the bike, moved all the vehicles
out into the car park, and had a cup of tea. I drove the Landrover and horse
trailer, Mark and Linda were in the Range Rover and the bird trailer, Dave and
Mark had their large van and Anabelle had her car – she left us at the end of
the M50 as we were not travelling that fast.
We arrived at about 10.00am, and
immediately started to unload and put the birds into their various enclosures,
it took about two hours by the time we had unboxed them all and put the boxes
under cover. All the birds made the trip well and settled very very well in
their new enclosures, there was little in the way of crashing and they looked
wonderful, although Charlie said that the aviaries kept much cleaner without
birds in them however they were a little boring to look at after a while! We
had some lunch at the Centre, and Mark and David left at about 1.00pm, Linda
Mark Parker and I left at 1.30, leaving Charlie and Anabelle and Duncan and
Rebecca – two volunteers ( Duncan from Newent and Rebecca from Yorkshire) to
feed all the birds and carry on.
All are still fine and settled well, which
is very relieving. We filled up the vehicles, got five miles down the road the
and the Range Rover died. Thank goodness it was on the trip back, and thank
goodness for the AA who arrived within an hour, loaded the car up, hitched up
the trailer and we left them to it. I did mention that if they wanted to lose
the Range Rover on the way back that would be fine, but please return the
trailer. They dropped it off at about 10.30 that night. Linda Mark and I drove
back in the Landrover which behaved very well, because of the delay we hit
awful traffic on the M42 around the airport, but got home at about 8.00pm after
over 11 hours of driving!!
Friday we recovered and I had two riding
lessons, and Art was very good and so was I! Saturday we were busy and the owl
evening went well. The staff had managed to get three of the empty aviaries in
the tiny owl block winter cleaned, re perched and painted so we were finally
able to put out the Ferruginous Pygmy Owls, who are charming, very settled, and
enchanting all the visitors, I just need to find the time to do a sign for
them.
Sunday we had a half experience day and a
half teaching photo day and very few staff so I did the photo morning with
Linda teaching and Holly and John did the half experience day and Simon
demolished the old temporary cage that had held the Pygmy Owls, the weather was
perfectly glorious in the morning, a perfect late autumn day, it got a big hazy
in the afternoon but we still had a great day.
Today Clear Vision is coming to fix the
windscreen in the little van which I broke with a fence rail. Which reminds me……
I first phoned Autoglass to get a price – BE VERY CAREFULL!!! Their first quote
was over £500 so after a few choice words and a mention that it was probably
more than the vehicle was worth, they gave me a better one of about £380. I
then phoned Clear Vision who quoted £120!!! I did say that was great because
Autoglass had quoted far more, and the chap said that I was the second phone
call that day with the same problem. SO phone around if you need a windscreen
and remember that if your insurance company is using Autoglass which mine is,
phone them and tell them that they need to phone around as well, because if
they are being charged £500 instead of £120 which I suspect they are – that is
one of the reasons insurance is high.
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