Wednesday 29 January 2014
A very good
friend gave me an iPad for Christmas, for which I am extremely grateful, but
which also means, much to the joy of the staff who have to deal with my emails
when I am away, that I can do them wherever I am in the world – oh great!!!
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| Cowan Red is back out on duty for the start of the year |
However to be
able to access them I have had to change from Windows Live, which replaced
Outlook Express, and was no-where near as good I have to say, to Outlook. I had
to get Outlook 2013 – DON’T but it whatever you do!!!! It is crap, and that is
putting it very mildly indeed. Apparently I can’t put emails into my calendar
without sending the bloody things to myself as well, I can’t send a group email
without far more clicks of the mouse. I can’t stop all email addresses that
arrive to me going automatically into my address book, I can’t add a signature
to emails that have been forwarded and there are a whole ton of other things
that I can’t do which I could with Outlook Express and Windows Live - I hate
it!!!
I guess the two
things that really annoy me is that software writers don’t seem to understand
that some things do not need changing and that in fact the upgrades, changes
and general overhauls of a programme almost always are a problem rather than an
improvement to the users.
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| Mark's Merlin is ready to show off |
The other things
that really pisses me off is that they have glitches and often don’t work. If I
bought a drill, or an iron or a car that had glitches and did not work I would
be able to throw it back at the maker with strong words about it. Can you do
that with software, apparently not. I would like to return Outlook 2013 and get
2010 which I am told is better. Mr Microsoft, please talk to your software
writers and tell them that they should not improve a programme without asking
the people who use it if they really want to have it improved!!! And if they do
improve it they need to put it out to people like me, who can then tell them
what is not good about it!! Get it sorted please!
Well the rain
continues, the ground is saturated, but we are at least much luckier than those
poor people living close to rivers. I always thought it would be wonderful,
like Ratty, to live on the river, but now I am glad I live three hundred feet
up. However the snowdrops are still coming up, the daffodils are showing green
and its very weird to hear spring bird song this early, but we have been
hearing it since Christmas.
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| The Verreaux's nest and egg |
We now have
camera’s on the nests in the Eagle Barn, and Adam has put them on Ustream, so
you can see what is happening. The Verreaux’s laid two days ago and the
Vultures are now sitting on a wooden egg and Holly has taken their egg for
hatching. We will return the chick at about two weeks old as they failed to
rear last year.
Jimmi is
starting to train the Black Changeable Hawk Eagle as we are unlikely to ever
get a mate for her and so we thought we would see how she did flying.
Benbecula, the new male Stellers Sea Eagle is flying wonderfully, as is
Rathlin, John’s Steppe Eagle. He is also training a Striated Caracara kindly
given to us by ZSL, called Hibre, he is wonderful and very smart. The falcons
are starting to fly well, all the owls are coming back on line after their Christmas
break, and we are ready to open.
Its odd that
come the end of November we are really looking forward to being closed and not
having to work our day round flying demonstrations, but by about mid January we
are all looking forward to being open again!
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| A touch of spring to get us there! |
I am very much
looking forward to the spring this year because with Rob joining us as gardener
he has already made a huge difference to how the gardens are looking and the
spring will really show the difference.
With the new
Hospital making a big difference to our lives, the gardens coming on, a great
team of staff, the workshop being moved, the cars under cover, and the place
looking good, all it has to do is stop raining and we will have a great year
ahead of us.
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2 comments:
Hello!
This is a little off-topic to your latest update but I was wondering if you have any tips on beginning falconry?
I have been reading every book there is to read on the sport(including Falconry-Care, Captive breeding and Conversation) and I have had a number of 'hands-on' lessons with a nearby falconer were we flew harris's and did some hunting and training methods(we also cover smaller things like: falconers knot, making furniture and and how to hood a bird, to list a few) but I would love it if you have any pointers and ideas before I get my first bird this year.
Thank you.
-Reece.
Also, is there a live feed camera of the Verreaux’s egg? I'm really interested in what happens at the center and a live feed would be great but if it has hatched already, please post a few pictures!
Thanks again.
Reece.
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