Wednesday 26 March 2014

Sedge has had a tough two days, he has had dreadful diarrhoea which for a chap who can't stand up is not fun, I went to the vets and got him some different medicine and he has been eating rice and chicken, but its still not great. I did 6 towel washes yesterday and ran out of space to dry the towels, only done three so far today.
 
He had a good swimming session on Monday, and Laser treatment yesterday, he was supposed to have hydrotherapy again today but we cancelled it until he is a bit better. He is still cheerful though, and right now asleep in front of the fire. I have never lit the fire so often! I have to admit to some confusion, all the vets I have spoken to, and there have been a few are pretty pessimistic about Sedge if he has not shown
signs of improvement within three to four weeks. (We are at four weeks on Sat). But the people who do the various therapies, hydro etc., are more optimistic and think that three months is not unreasonable. It makes for an up and down life at the moment I have to say.

 
We put the oldest baby Verreaux's Eagle back with mum and dad today, they were feeding it within five minutes!!! And it was amazing how quickly the chick wanted food from his mum, having never seen an eagle before. I am hoping that we might be able to get the second chick back, but we have to be careful because they are known 100% for cainism. We will have to try it when the second chick is a little older.
 
We removed the second Steller's Eagle chick as it was not feeding well, it is doing fine now and we will keep it out for a week and then return to mum, although getting it out and putting it back was and will be fun as she is very very protective.
 
Sadly the Hooded Vulture egg did not make it, although it was fertile, so we will have to wait another year for that. The Palmnut Vulture egg may possibly have been fertile, but it had nothing much mush inside. However the Turkey Vultures have been mating and she has laid her first egg. So its busy in the incubation and brooder room.
 
A good friend of mine sent me a lovely picture of an Australia Goshawk, they come in grey and white colour phases, this is a beautiful bird!
Saturday 22 March 2014

Well Sedge did well in his first Hydrotherapy, I was worried as he is not a water dog. We took him to Hartpury to Cotswold Dog Spa and I have to say I could not fault them, they were patient and incredibly kind with him, assessed him on the floor and spent time with him and then put a jacket on him and two of them were in the pool with him. Two people with this tiny paralysed little dog. They spent some time on the ramp so he had his front feet on solid ground and then gave him three swims along the length of the pool, by the third swim he felt safer and did well. He then had a shower and shampoo and a rest before we took him home.
 
He had had another laser treatment a couple of days beforehand and has two more of those to come, he is going for three sessions in the pool per week for the next three weeks and we will see how he does.
 
Holly had very kindly taken me to Hereford Hospital for my eye appointment as it expressly said no driving, which was probably a good thing. That was all fine and I have to have my left eye operated on, I don't know when yet, but hopefully not too long a wait. We managed to get back in time that I could go with Sedge. Unfortunately Sally's camera battery went flat so I will take some photos of him in the pool next
time. She got video of him though.
 
We had a busy day with a Birthday Party and a Hen Party, both went well despite the weather being cold and changeable. All the falcons were out on the lawn when a hail storm hit, my little Hobby was baiting to get back into her compartment!!
 
Sadly the Hooded Vulture egg did not hatch, one of the big problems with all books are that they do not know the right incubation period, so I wish instead of putting 46 - 56 days which is ridiculous, they just put not known, because it sure as hell is not!!
 
Lyra is back on duty and doing well, Helen is flying her along with Jimmi. Discovery is in disgrace, she hit Helen on the nose on purpose, so she is going to be flown by me for a few weeks to see if she dares do it again! My Red Kite has been flying brilliantly, she loves the wind and really does use it well, she stooped yesterday and it was lovely to see.


 
Thursday 20 March 2014
Late last year I bought two washing machines, one for the clinic and one for the house, I had got rather tired of doing the clinic and baby bird towels in my washing machine and then bumping into the occasional mouse head or tail in my own washing, not fun as you can imagine. The one in the Clinic which is not a hoover apparently works fine, no fuss, it just does the washing and the spinning regardless of how much or little you put in there. Not so the Hoover, it is a piece of crap to put not to fine a point on it, I have complained a number of times because generally it refuses to spin with monotous regularity. I have been told by the people who I bought it from that I have been putting too much weight in, I have however been told by the engineer who came to fix it that I have not been putting in enough weight. I don't want to have to weigh my damn washing, I just want a machine that will work, I don't want nine million programmes I want a machine that works, and this one does not. DON'T BUY A HOOVER Washing Machine!!

Sedge had his second laser treatment, we were disappointed that there was no improvement, he will have two more before we consider that this is not going to help. He has his first Hydrotherapy session tomorrow, unfortunately I
Sedge with his new blanket in the cart
have to go to Hereford for an eye appointment, so staff and friends will go with him, I hope he is not upset by water, I think he will be OK. Emma, Jimmi's girlfriend made a blanket for him, which he loves and as the weather is getting worse, it will be very useful. Ginny sent he two more coats, and I have just bought him a dog safety belt for the car as he has to travel to all these appointments. It is hard to see him like this for so long, and not know if he is ever going to get mobile again. I went on the internet and found a treatment that has worked in the US, and I emailed the lady on the site, amazingly and I was very touched, she emailed back, but sadly the drug is only any use in the first 48 hours of the injury, and no use after that. You would think there was something that could help spinal cords recover, or someone who could tell you what the chances are.

We now have two baby Verreaux's Eagles, the second one of the first clutch hatched at 7.30pm last night, Holly may come down off the cloud by the end of today, but I am not convinced that she will!!!

The first Steller's eggs has hatched and the second egg should hatching the next couple of days, it will be fun to watch on CCTV, you should be able to see it on the website, I hope! They will do a good job rearing as she is a great parent as is the male.
 
Hare is out and could have gone loose today but for the wind, Karis is close to ready, Fortina is back flying free and we have two more kites to add to the team, I hope to get them to six by May. My Hobby is flying beautifully, I am really pleased with her and my Red Kite is being awful to everyone except for me, which is a nuisance. The female Spectacled Owl is much improved and doing well.
 
The fire is alight and Sedge is happily lying in front of it, he does love a good warm fire.
 



Friday 14 March 2014
Mark and I went to London on Wednesday, we were giving a presentation at the PAW meeting, which was held at Kew Royal Botanical Gardens. It was pretty foggy when we left and stayed that way pretty much all the way to Reading when it cleared, and then we hit London traffic. It took us three hours to get there and one hour 55 minutes on the way back!!!
 
It was pretty foggy yesterday, but cleared by lunchtime and we managed to get all the birds flown, and at the end of the day a school party from Newent School came up to learn about the
vulture project and the problems of diclofenac, shame the European Government doesn't seem to understand it! I had Neil and some of the bird staff coming to supper so just about managed to get ready for it. Sedge was very excited to have lots of people in the house in the evening. We had a nice meal and the dogs enjoyed the company. Neil kindly had a look at Sedge and felt that there was some hopeful signs of reflex response. He suggested that Sedge have some treatment from a practitioner he knows who does acupuncture and laser therapy, and he emailed her to ask her to contact me.
 
This morning I had to take Sedge over to Vets Now to see his surgeon and have the staple stitches
taken out. He still has no deep pain response, but Sergio also felt that there was more reflex response, particularly in the left leg, which I had noticed was slightly stronger (he could manage on three legs). He said there is a little hope and I drove home with Sedge, who was much more relaxed on the way back than he had been on the way there. The drive was dreadful both ways - thick fog for most of it and I was staggered at how many people were stupid enough to drive a) much to fast and b) with out lights on. I was very pleased to get home in one piece.
 
Jan, the lady who does the laser therapy phoned at lunchtime and came over and gave him his first treatment, he was a little concerned, but soon settled and almost went to sleep. He is a tired dog this evening. He has another treatment on Monday, so fingers crossed.
 
The birds all flew very well today, I don't think I could fault any of them and they are all loving seeing the sun again. Mark got Karis and Fortina out, so they will be back on duty soon. And I am really pleased so far with my new Harris Hawk, he is called The Thinker and is doing well. Oh and Holly's Harris Hawk Domino knobbled a duck yesterday, they really are particularly brainless at the moment. I mean it is pretty stupid to think about breeding on a pond where over thirty birds of prey are flown daily, not to mention the dogs, but to walk from one pond to another in the middle of a flying demonstration is asking for trouble and one of the drakes got it. So its duck for supper.
Tuesday 11 March 2014
A cold easterly wind was coming up the field today, that means that the poor visitors are chilly watching the demonstrations, but that the flying is generally wonderful, and it was. All the falcons did well, as did the buteos, but the most exciting without a doubt was Benbecula, Pioneer's baby brother Steller's Sea Eagle. He was just having a whale of a time and so were we watching him. Holly videoed him on her phone and he was up for over three minutes, it was a joy to watch, mind you I was not quite so sure when Jimmi excitedly said at the end of the demonstration that he would have left him up longer but did not have the balls!
 
We got Hare out today, he would have loved this wind too, however he has to come back to his flying weight and needs one new tail feather before he can have his telemetry mount put on. We also have to completely imp the new Saker who has a dreadful tail.
 
Sedge is well, we put some wire mesh round the sides of the cart to make them higher and now he is able to stay in that all day and be wheeled around for coffee, lunch if we are outside and even down to the flying ground if it is not too cold. He seems to enjoy it and can stretch out
comfortably.
 
I can't work out if he is getting the ability to pee himself or I am getting better at helping him, it may be a bit of both. I would like to point out though that I rarely let anyone crap on me, and the last time was the executive director and the Board of directors at the South Carolina Center for Birds of Prey, and that was not through choice, but then they are a bunch of idiots anyway. Sedge on the other hand has done so at least three times in the last few days, however I can honestly say that I prefer him doing it!!! We are getting through about six to eight towels a day. And they are not coming to fix the washing machine until Friday, the only excuse I can think of is that a lot of them must go wrong!!! I have been told he will be turning up sometime between 8.00am and 6.00pm - now that is an incredibly useful bit of information. Don't you just love it!
 
Apart from the cold it has been dry - hooray, and spring is definitely abounding. Leaves are showing, birds are singing, bulbs are coming up and my Magnolia is going to flower for the first time.
 
 
Saturday 8 March 2014
Life is beginning to settle around Sedge, although I have to say it would have been a little easier if a) I had not forgotten to order heating oil so I have no central heating and no hot water!! and b) the bloody new Hoover washing machine worked. I have to say that the more technical these machines become, the less well they actually seem to wash. I wish companies would just make a bog standard washing machine that works and you don't need a degree in IT to get it to work! And of course this is the one time when I need one urgently. Luckily we do have one in the clinic, but taking stuff across is not exactly fun.
 
Thank you all who have brought towels, at least I have enough now that if I don't keep up with washing them it is not so crucial
 
Sedge is coping, he is very very insistent that he has to go to coffee time, I have been carrying him but thought of the little cart so he has travelled around in that and seems less stressed, he never did like being carrying even when well. What is odd is that he seems to be able to almost wag his tail and this evening while he was asleep in front of the fire (which he loves) his front legs were twitching and so was his tail. He still has no deep pain sensation though. Perhaps the tail movement is a good sign, we will wait and see.
 
The weather was just lovely today and we were busy, it was lovely to see so many members and photographers and Clive got a couple of great shots of Killigrey my Hobby who flew superbly this afternoon, as did Tai Pan. The weather makes such a difference to us all - humans and birds. We have a pair of wild Little Owls that live around the Centre, they get incredibly vocal in the afternoon, it is wonderful to hear them. They bred in the side of the Kite Barn last year, I am hoping Jimmi will put up a proper box for them this year.
 
I am just getting our Savigny's Eagle Owl going again, Coll, the picture is his mother as a baby! I am hoping that he will have grown up a little this year. Tiree is much better than last year so it may be the same for Coll.
Friday 7 March 2014
Sedge is home, people have been great and lent me wire dog boxes for him, so he is in one right now. It is heart breaking to see him unable to walk and obviously not understanding why, but we shall see. If anyone has any spare old towels I could do with some. We went through all our old ones that we use for the birds, late last year and had to throw some away, and of course needless to say now I could do with them.
 
I am pleased to say that the female Spectacled Owl looks much much better, she is sitting up and looks bright eyed. You can always tell when a bird is getting better as it gets harder to give its medicine!
 
It was a grey start, but the sun is coming out now, so hopefully the more cheerful weather predictions will be correct, which will be lovely.
 
We have a Hawk Day today, so life is getting back to normal. Carl Jones is bring over another Condor egg, from sunny Wales so it will be lovely if it is fertile and we have another baby Condor, they are wonderful birds. The Turkey Vultures have been mating as well, so spring is definitely about. Talking about vultures, Chris sent me this lovely picture of one for my birthday, how anyone can think they are ugly defeats me. All the chicks are doing well back with their parents in India and so we are delighted with how that trial went.
 
Oh and want to hear a mindlessly stupid thing, the EU government - Italy and Spain in particular (Spain is the stronghold for Eurasian Griffon Vultures and Italy has a programme to help Egyptian Vultures) have granted a license to sell Diclofenac as a veterinary drug. I would love to know what complete and utter moron put that one forward and which also complete and utter morons allowed it to happen!!! I suspect bribery from drug companies personally.
 
Here goes for another day.
Thursday 6 March 2014
Well I started my birthday early today, but it was a good start. To add to the worry with Sedge, our female Spectacled Owl did not look well about four days ago, as it is always difficult to judge if they are ill or in egg lethargy at this time of the year we checked her over, but left her until the next day. By the end of the day there was no improvement so we phoned Great Western Exotics, Holly spoke to Tom who is very good and eventually after reassessing her we decided that pancake day or not, we should take her over there. Holly and Adam offered to go, they got back at 2.00am!!
 
The Spectacled Owl had an egg that was malpositioned and it was not coming out, however Tom managed to extract it (in bits) without operating and she was OK. Well sort of OK. She has been on antibiotics, fluids and metacam, she looked reasonably OK by lunchtime, but after her second treatment of fluids she went backwards and seemed very stressed. We decided to leave the third lot until later in the evening and Adam Holly and I gave her more meds and fluids, I have to say I was surprised she was still alive at that point. However this morning at 5.45, she was still with us and managed the fluids and meds better, let us hope she makes it. Adam had to leave early so it was a good time to get her done, Holly returned to her bed in her flat and I fed the dogs, had some breakfast and took them for a walk round the field.
 
The top part of the wood has been cleared, we had a lot of the scrub trees in the hedge come down, so we have pollarded the hedge and at a later date we will lay it like the one at the lower half of the wood. It looks very clear and the view is better, the remaining trees will do better and we want to plant a whole load of wildflowers in there.  So I put some more brashings on the fire which was still alight and came to start work.
 
I am taking Sorrel to have a blood test to see if she is ready to mate as we hope to have puppies from her, this will be the fourth attempt. Shasta got married officially on Wednesday! Then later today I think Sedge is coming home. He still had no deep pain sensation yesterday, but as it is just a question of waiting now (I hate waiting!) if the urinary catheter has come out and we can manage to help him pee he can come home. So a kennel has to be got ready this morning and a bed, I have bought him a memory foam bed, I hope he likes it. I suspect it will almost be tougher having him here, but if he is happier that is fine.
 
The weather is set to improve! Hooray, that will cheer up the birds too. Actually they have all been flying really well despite the weather. My Hobby was excellent yesterday and Kalyke the day before was also very good, bodes well for the better weather. Hare will come out soon and some more of the kites, so the demonstrations are really coming on again.
 
Tuesday 4 March 2014
A quick update, still no deep pain sensation, but Sedge has tried to move his legs, which is sort of good we think. The length of time that we are going to give him has been increased to three weeks, so that makes me feel a little better. He has a urine catheter, which is being removed tomorrow, and there is a chance that  he will come home on Friday. I am a little concerned about it, but it will be lovely to have him home. There is still a LONG way to go and he may still not make it.

Thanks to all

mima
Monday 3 March 2014
There is a remote possibility that I might not be the most patient person in the world, I really do not appreciate waiting. For example I loath poor service in restaurants,  and have been known to walk out after ordering, but before the meal because I don't like to wait too long.
 
All this stuff with Sedge is a waiting game and I understand all the reasons why, but that does not make it any easier, particularly as there is nothing I can do for him but wait. Not pleasant.
 
Esteban Gonzalez-Gasch is the vet who operated
Little does he know he will have to have hydrotherapy if he
 gets better and he does not really like water!
on and treated Sedge, he phoned this morning and there is still no deep pain sensation, but he thought there might be a tiny response in his leg, nothing that was discernible, but just a tiny hope. And we are hanging on to that hope. Sedge is now having his meds aurally, and although he still has a catheter, he is eating and doing OK. Its only just over 48 hours since the operation and so it is very early days, we are aiming at two weeks before he has no chance, but he will manage before that we are sure.
 
I finally plucked up the courage to phone the NFU to make sure he was insured, and thank God he is, only to the tune of £2000 but that is a huge relief and I hope to sleep a little better tonight. But the more amazing thing is the comments, and donations that people have made, over £1200 now in the kitty for him, I told the vet and he was staggered. I was very tactful and did not say, now you have to make it work!!
 
Many people have phoned or emailed to offer help and encouragement, which is just wonderful and makes this difficult time more easy to bear because we know that so many people care. I suspect if he does pull through he will be very spoilt!!
 
It was a nice day and then a nasty one and then a nice one, cold though. The birds all flew well and I managed to get Mark's merlin Megstone done as well as my Hobby Killigray. They both flew very well and Tai Pan (Barbary Falcon) was excellent and Kallyke was just amazing. 
 
The top section of the wood is now pretty clear, although getting the wood out has not improved the state of the field. It is lovely to be able to see through the wood to the fields beyond. I long for the late spring when the leaves are out. The baby vulture is doing well and I am pleased to say so are the ones that we returned to parents in India, which is very satisfying.
 
The wild daffodils are starting to show, spring is thinking about coming although today it was pretty damn cold here.
 
Thank you all for helping with Sedge, I will keep up the information I promise.
 
jpj 
Sunday 2 March 2014
first days of Sedges arrival here
Well after a beautiful day weather wise yesterday, today was rather more miserable and it's grey and raining right now. We managed to do one flying demonstration outside and Benbecula was amazing, flew brilliantly, if you have not seen him - male Steller's Sea Eagle, he is worth a visit just to watch him! The Luggers have laid which is a very nice surprise and Dawn Run has her first egg too.
 
The vet phoned from Vets Now this morning, Sedge was OK, he was being a little vocal so they reduced the very strong pain meds, there was still no pain response, but it is early days yet, only about 14 hours after the operation so it could not be expected yet. I did say I was not expecting miracles until Thursday but I did want one then please! We believe in miracles here, nothing like them to cheer one up.
 
eating a falconry glove
I just phoned now (early evening on Sunday) to see how he was and he is settled and sleeping, he has eaten a little but has a catheter in because he can't pee. He was trying to walk this morning which he is not supposed to do, so we continue to wait and hope for him.
 
a little older
In the interim period my friends and staff have been putting things on Facebook and unbelievably people have already donated over £800 towards his care, I can't even think about it without crying, its just amazing and we don't even know if he is going to make it. He is however a particularly special dog, he sits uninvited on people's laps, he waits by the entry gate to welcome people, he chases the house martins who laugh at him because he is never near and we miss him hourly.
 
 
Have to be positive about things though, think positive thoughts and he will get better. So we are thinking ahead, his bed is ready for him and we are looking at hydrotherapy for him to get things working again if we can. Someone has already offered to help. We also have two people who are vet nurses locally and they have offered to help as well, I suspect if he gets home he will be very well looked after.
 
Don't forget its Pan Cake day on Tuesday

jpj
relaxing on a Labrador!
Saturday 1 March 2014

It's not a good day, even though the weather was lovely, as I write Sedge is being operated on and his chances of full recovery are between 20% and 50% which are not great odds.
 

He jumped on my lap at coffee time on Thursday, and slipped and fell, just a tiny distance, but he yelled very loudly and was immediately lame, I took him to our local vet that afternoon and he was checked over and put on pain killers and told to rest, he did not want to move anyway. He rested all day Friday, but by Friday 9.00pm he was unable to use his back legs, I rushed him back to Eden Tanners, who said it was not good. He kept Sedge in overnight and I came home and warned Vet’s Now over at Swindon that we might be over. This morning Eden phoned to say he was worse and I picked him up and drove from Ledbury to Swindon in 40 minutes. He  has had a CT scan, an MRI scan would have been better but it was not available until Monday and that would have been too late. Two discs are injured and the danger is to his spinal cord.

 
So keep everything fingers crossed, we will not know straight away if the damage is too great for him to go on. Unfortunately whatever the outcome, the bill could be £5500 which is very worrying at this time of the year and just what we did not need, however I could not refuse him the chance.
 

The trip to India was uneventful but long and the plane was packed. The cost was higher because airlines kindly put up the prices for school half terms and holidays which I think is all wrong. Have you ever noticed that petrol prices always go up at that time too. I would not even consider putting our prices up for the holidays, I guess they can get away with it because we all have no option but to use them.
 

It was good to see the sun in India, it makes you understand just how much you miss it, and after the dismal grey and wet winter we have been living through, it’s a joy to see and feel.

 
On Wednesday we put back four chicks with the Long billed vultures, in colony aviary 1. All had reared chicks previously, so all had experience with young.  We climbed a bamboo ladder to each nest (health and safety would have had a fit in the UK!) took each egg and returned each chick, I put the first and last in, and Jackie put the other two, Vibhu moved the eggs out to the incubation room and returned with the right chick for the parent. We decided that as the vultures tend to move to one end when we enter the aviary that we would put all the chicks in their nests at one end only this time to see how it went, there was one nest the other end and that also has a naïve pair, so we decided to leave her until we knew that the others had all settled. All went well and almost before we had left the colony aviary the birds were going back to their nests. All the parents reacted beautifully, nibbling their chick, brooding them, trying to pull them gently underneath. The age of the chicks varied from four days old to twenty days old, ideally eight to twelve days old is the best, but rarely does one have the ideal situation, so generally I have to say I was delighted with the process as it went. The problem when putting older chicks back is that they are more mobile, and as they have not seen parents before, they don’t understand the need to be brooded, so they can either keep getting away from the parents, or worst case fall out of the nest, which is not good. The younger chicks of course are more vulnerable, but easier for the parents to manage. Once the parent birds have brooded properly and have fed the young, one can relax a little and let them continue the job. By the end of the day all the chicks were settled and some had been fed. It was interesting to see how both males and females were extremely attentive to the chicks, one pair actually pushing one another off so they could brood!
 

On Thursday we put back one Slender-billed Vulture chick and one Oriental White Backed Vulture chick. The Slender – billed female vulture took the chick back in five minutes, and had fed it within half an hour. The White-backed Vulture was a one winged bird and she was with her mate in one of the breeding aviaries, she ran around on the floor while we removed the egg, however when she heard the chick calling she hopped up onto a perch and watched us return the chick. There is no CCTV surveillance in the breeding aviaries, so we put up a telescope back from the aviary and watched from there. She was back on the nest almost immediately and within an hour had fed the chick and was brooding it. All in all very successful. The four Long Billed Vulture chicks from the previous day were all doing well and some had been fed, all the parent birds were very attentive and caring for the chicks wonderfully.

 
On Friday we planned to return three chicks, two went back with no problems, but the last female decided that she did not want her egg removed and was quite insistent about it, so we decided rather than stressing her we would leave it, and rear that chick with one who’s parent had not double clutched, and let her hatch her second clutch egg.

 
The second clutch of eggs, are now going to be artificially incubated  of the first four I would say all are fertile, but one looks to be a little dubious so we have placed it in an incubator on its own, The Slender-billed Vulture egg is probably fertile, but it’s very difficult to be sure as it is rather grubby. The one winged White –backed egg is fertile and the two from colony aviary four are also be fertile. The whole point of this exercise was to see firstly the parent birds would accept back chicks, and they have done with no problems, secondly to check on the fertility and hatchability of the second clutches and see if we can do a better job than the birds were with second eggs.

 
All in all a very useful experiment. We only took 14 eggs rather than all of the first clutches laid. Of the 14 eggs, one was infertile, one failed to hatch, one is hatching at the moment and 11 hatched well. If the second clutches of eggs hatch as well, we will hope to produce 25 birds at Pinjore this year. If we then double clutch, and return the first young to parents and hatch the second clutches at all three Centres, I am confident that we can produce 50 young per year. Which is a significant step forward.

 
Bear in mind though that we are going to reduce production now we know this works, until we start releases, then we should be able to increase it enough to meet requirements.
 
The storm on Valentine’s day was tough to deal with, the beautiful scots pine that was behind my new garage, is no more. I looked at it just before the end of the day and it looks as if it were leaning and I could not remember seeing that before. By the time I went out to get sorted for the Owl Evening, it was most definitely leaning, by the end of the Owl evening it was about a foot away from the garage and several branches were resting on the roof, so I moved everything out of there just in case (!) David and Sally came over to see if we could do anything, but as the wind was still howling and the raining tipping down, there was little we could do, so we had a drink instead! By about midnight the ground by the roots looked like it was breathing as the tree lifted and fell back. So at 1.00am I went to bed. Sleep was not easily found, I got up at first light and the garage was still there, the tree had moved so far it was now resting on the tiles which were not holding up to the weight. The gutter was flat and one branch had gone through the roof, but otherwise things looked OK, at least certainly better than they could have been. However I had to get the tree off as soon as possible. Our usual tree guy was not available so David found someone for me. He came and looked at the tree and said he would be back with some help and a machine. He duly turned up and cut down the tree piece by piece, however because the cones are huge and kept falling off, there was some more damage to tiles on both the front and back, which was disappointing but unavoidable.

 

As we had already lost two trees in the car park, I was really glad we had removed the others there as I am sure they would have been down as well otherwise. The only other problem we had was with Mozart’s aviary, where the lead ridge had partially blow off. Jimmi half fixed it and John finished it off the following day.

 

So I wait to hear how Sedge’s operation as I finish this, and ask all of you to cross your fingers for him, the Centre would be poorer for his lose.

 

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.

Blog Archive

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

Website counter

Followers