Sunday, 29 January 2017
My last free weekend is nearly over. As from now as we open on Wednesday, no more weekends until December, oh well. The dogs will be very pleased when February 1st comes, they hate December and January, particularly the weekends as there is only one member of staff here for a couple of hours and otherwise they are stuck with just me!!
The Owl evening on Friday had a lovely bunch of people which was a good thing because sadly the weather forecast was spot on and the rain start at about 5.00pm. However it was mizily rain, not really heavy and we managed to get through the evening without too many problems.
We are down on flying birds because of Avian Influenza, we have not had the normal numbers of birds flying because of the risk. We start up with a number of them tomorrow, so we will get up to speed reasonably quickly I hope.
I have spend hours going through CV's in the last week, we have had good applicants for all the three jobs we have available. Holly has done a stint on the bird staff applications with me as has Rosie, Adam worked on the cafe staff applications with me and Eileen on the PR/Marketing/Sales group with me. I am CV'd out at the moment!Next come interviews - four days of them! February is going to be a very busy month! But it will be good to see visitors again as we settle in for the 50th anniversary year.
Sunday, 22 January 2017
The trip to South Africa was good, we first went to the
house of Neil Forbes and stayed the night, had a walk through part of the game
reserve and then the following day we move to Ostrich Manor a hotel in a
beautiful site, although sadly lots of traffic noise. We spent three days
teaching a husbandry, incubation and rearing of in this case vultures, but
birds in general. It was well attended and everyone seemed to enjoy it. It was
held at Vulpro which is based at the foot of the Magaliesberg Range of
mountains, a stunning place.
It is really important to us to share the knowledge we have
gained over the last five decades so that others can benefit – more importantly
the birds can benefit and the mistakes that we have made in the past are not
repeated ad finitum.
Kerri Wolter then led us to Oliphants, a game reserve that
her family have a share in right next to Kruger National Park. The house was
stunning and had air conditioning which for me was great because I don’t sleep
well in very hot conditions. Not that we slept a great deal as we were out of
the house by 5am for game watching and vulture searching! The house was right
on the river, and there was a huge crocodile lurking at the bottom of the bank.
It was certainly not the place to go for a walk right by the river!
We spent two days there looking at impala, elephant, saw a
leopard, wildebeest, bush buck, and a beautiful male black rhino. And of course
we were on the lookout for many birds, specifically vultures, which we saw a
good number of. Hooded Vultures, cape Vultures, African White backed Vultures
and Lappet Faced Vultures.
We had an impala carcass because Kerri wanted to catch and
wing tag some of the local birds, however although they came in on the first
day the nylon nooses did not work and although we caught three birds, the
nooses did not hold which was annoying in the extreme. We redid the nooses
after the first day, but not a vulture appeared, so later in the morning we
went out looking for them. We found them, lots of them, and understood why none
were coming into our carcass, but sadly the reason was a very
recently poached female Rhino, with her horns hacked out, her tail and ears cut
off.
We reported it and then when the manager arrived left them to do what they
needed to do in terms of forensics. Even worse when we got back to the house
they found a second poached Rhino, this time a male and another on a nearby
reserve. Three Black Rhinos in one night, it was seriously shocking to see and
hard to understand why people would do this horrific act for a horn made of the
same material as our fingernails.
I suppose the only saving grace was that the revolting
people who did this, did not poison the carcasses, otherwise we would have
found a dead Rhino and hundreds of dead vultures. It did however put a severe dampener
on the day and brought home to huge problems that fame wardens are facing to
save these iconic species.
We headed back to Neil’s place where there were none of the
wildlife liable to eat you and so Neil and I went for a walk to see if we could
find a secretary bird as they have them nesting there. Sadly they were nowhere
to be found that day.
After a day spent at the veterinary college where Neil
operated on two of Kerri’s vultures to give
them the chance of being released
back to the wild in the future I went back to Vulpro with Kerri and Maggie and
the two treated vultures and had a peaceful evening before starting the long
trip home the following day.
When it get close to my coming home I start to forget where
I am and just look forward to getting home. Travel is not fun it is to be
endured and survived!! I was however by that time really looking forward to a
great cup of tea, a cold bedroom and a welcome by my five Labradors.
It was frosty and cold on the trip back to Newent, but once I got home, overcast cold and misty. All was well, staff, birds and dogs fine, and we moved new sand into the compartments in the Hawk Walk, got the top side done. I then worked on getting my office back to working as it had been emptied and decorated while I was away.
Mark left the Centre on Friday as his last day and did his final Owl Evening, it went very well, with a bright moonlight
night, tons of stars, and cold which is as it should be in the winter. We wish Mark the best of luck in buying a new property and starting his own business making falconry equipment.
My office is now almost up and running apart from the TV is not working and neither is the printer, but then moving electrics has never been my forte!
It was frosty and cold on the trip back to Newent, but once I got home, overcast cold and misty. All was well, staff, birds and dogs fine, and we moved new sand into the compartments in the Hawk Walk, got the top side done. I then worked on getting my office back to working as it had been emptied and decorated while I was away.
Mark left the Centre on Friday as his last day and did his final Owl Evening, it went very well, with a bright moonlight
night, tons of stars, and cold which is as it should be in the winter. We wish Mark the best of luck in buying a new property and starting his own business making falconry equipment.
My office is now almost up and running apart from the TV is not working and neither is the printer, but then moving electrics has never been my forte!
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