Well we are all exhausted, but the Falconry Weekend was a great success. The weather has been amazing for the last week, my staff and volunteers have been working so hard, we just could not have done it without all of them. They all are a stunning group of people. As I write Burgoyne’s has finally removed the last tents and left the field, Brinsea who still had their stand in the field has gone, the rubbish has gone, the PA system gone back, and only the electrics which have been neutralized has to be got in and we are back to normal. All the people doing the flying did brilliantly and the comments on Facebook are in their hundreds and all positive. It was as in the last two years, a wonderful atmosphere.

 

It has been a tough time though, after Rush died, our young Snowy Owl had to be taken into Great Western Exotics to see Neil, at the same time we had to take Alexandria, an 11 year old African Peregrine, and Pleiades my beautiful Indian Tawny Eagle whom we bred last year. The Snowy Owl, called Lindisfarne  turned out to have cerebral malaria, two weeks of intensive treatment, including one of the doses of antibiotics at 4 am one morning and we thought we were getting there, but he slipped back and even after a blood transfusion from his mum did not save him. Although young, we are going to bury him in the field. We lost the other two as well. Alexandria had an inoperable tumour and Pleiades had the same kidney problem that all the young seemed to have and was in great pain, so it was not fair to go on with her. They are buried together. Its so hard to lose these birds who are such a huge part of our lives.

 

All the other birds have been going on nicely. The four baby Yellow-billed Kites are all catching now and just all have to learn to eat on the wing and stay flying and they will be a stunning team.

 

Holly’s merlin Jura is going to be a good one, flying very well, the three young Lanners are now flying free, we have two young Luggers who are more of a challenge, but then Luggers always are. Mark’s Barbary is going really well and flying more and more strongly. Even Yeates, the five year old African Peregrine that I have been struggling with for months is now beginning to fly more strongly.

 

We had a big grounding of birds on Monday, the Falconry Weekend was over, the end of the school holidays was done and we need to concentrate on the young team, so four Lanners, two Harris Hawks, one Buzzard, two Eagles, three Kites and several Owls are now stuffing their faces and either in aviaries or about to go into one. Thus the young teams of birds take centre stage and improve more quickly as time goes on. We have kept the smallest young Steppe Eagle, I hope it will be a replacement for Pleiades, although I have my doubts, but you never know.

 

Indigo scared us all to death on Sunday, he was looking very old and ill and started to shake, so Holly and Ben bundled him into the van and took him to Ledbury to the vet. He stayed all day and was scanned, he had been eating far too much and his elderly tummy could not manage. He did worry us though and I was very upset as I could not bear to lose a second dog in such a short space of time, but he is much better now, and almost back to his usual self. Since Rush died he has slept on my bed and Holly has promised that he can sleep with her and Ben while I am away in India!

 

Muckle Roe, my beautiful Red Kite gave us a fright on Monday, she had one eye closed during the day, by the evening, her face was swollen on one side and tilted, she then threw up and so we decided to take her to GWE straight away, Tom was on duty and did an excellent job and we waited for her to recover from the anesthetic before I drove home and got back at 10.00 pm. I missed a good Chinese with Biff, so Holly and Ben had it!! Muckle Roe looked far worse the following morning, but at nearly 10.00pm 24 hours later she was looking more cheerful. She came running out of the sky kennel (bearing in mind we are rebuilding the hospital right now and so have birds littered everywhere!!!) ate some finely chopped food and then turned round and ambled all by herself back into her box!! Bless her! Today she is back on flying duty and did three excellent catches in mid air.

 

A new book about father written by Dick Fitzgerald was launched at the Falconry Weekend as was a reprint of a beautiful book by George Edward Lodge. I have a copy of each. And the Philip Glasier Falconry Museum concept was also launched.

 

 

You just think that things are going well, all the birds are flying well, all the young ones are coming on nicely, the Falconry Weekend is getting organised well and things are on track for that. The young Martial Eagle is lovely and settling nicely, and we have been offered a male on breeding loan, and then something hits you that you really don’t expect.

 

We lost Rush today. I have been there for the deaths of 12 labradors, well 11 and orchestrated one from the US and it never never gets any easier. Two days ago Rush started to be very lame on and off, and he was crying loudly with pain. So I took him straight to Eden Tanners, who looks after the dogs for us. We had a job to get him out of the car and he was very quiet in the surgery. We could not find anything that was blindingly obvious, but they had concerns about him and so kept him in over-night. They did not have a peaceful night. He went through bouts of pain that had him yelling very loudly. Drugs kept it under control, and the following day he was X-rayed. This showed various problems with his vertebrate, particularly in his neck. I collected him early that evening and he was gently crying, but seemed better when we got home. However by 11 pm he was back to crying, I managed to stop him for a while, but by 3.00 am he cried for the rest of the night, it was not a peaceful one for either of us. I took him back to the vets the following morning and they gave him more injections for pain, but over the day it was patently obvious that it was not working. If I or someone he knew was with him it was bearable, but if on his own, he could not cope. Sam Smith who is a great animal chiropractor looked at him as well and said there was not a lot that could be done for him, particularly taking into consideration his age.

Well I did go and buy one!! Briza (which is the scientific name for quaking grass which is my favourite grass of all time) came and joined us last Saturday. She is twelve weeks old, which is older than I like and I was a little worried, but I should not have been she has settled in like she has been here for ever. I had wondered that with a new Lab, maybe, just maybe Shasta would not be bottom of the pile, wrong she still is! But she and Briza are playing together which is really nice to see.

 

Gluey is doing really well although now nicknamed One Jump Gluey, as that is all he will do for food!! However he is a different bird now and living with his younger but larger brother Middle Mouse and doing very well. Middle Mouse just had his TV debut on Newsround, and hopefully people will rush here to see him!

 

Not all has gone really well with the breeding, it is the usual roller coaster ride. We have all crossable things crossed because the Striated Caracara’s has just hatched a baby, so we are hoping that they will hatch the other one as well and rear both. They are such clever birds that we don’t want to interfere and we certainly don’t want to hand rear them. Sadly we had a great deal less luck with the second clutch of merlins, they got some infection, which literally killed three of them in about 12 hours, we managed to save the oldest and largest chick, and it is still on antibiotics, but it was a grave disappointment to lose three out of the four.

On the up side Taransay (baby Condor) is now getting huge!!! And she is starting to very dramatic jumps up in the air, with those great big furry wings she looks enchanting when she does it and the visitors love her.

 

We have had lovely visitors most of the time however we have had one who has complained and been a pratt on Trip Advisor. The first moan was that we don’t have hot water in the loos and he stated that was illegal – wrong chum, and let me tell you that the day some of my customers stop shoving tampax and sanitary towels and the hand towels down the loo, stop using enough lavatory paper for an elephant with diarrhea, learn to aim properly at the urinal (you would think they could do that wouldn’t you!) and turn off the taps and not leave them running, then and only then will I consider, and it will be consider, putting in hot water. Plus as a conservation centre we don’t believe in wasting either water or power, or my income. Then he complained that the baby changing facility was utterly basic, you are dead right mate, it is not only basic but it’s extremely old as well – am I going to put in one of those expensive pull down things that you see in some loos – that would be a resounding no!! Do you have one at home, I don’t think so. I don’t actually see why I should provide anything, it’s your choice to have children, learn to deal with them without expecting other people to fork out for them!! Then he wanted us to offer sponsorship of eagles for £10 and a goody bag!!! What an idiot ( not my first choice of words!) I wish people like this would have the balls to  a) put their real name on complaints, and b) have the guts to complain to me personally, except that they rarely do as usually they are afraid of me.

 

I managed to hurt my back this week, it has been going on nicely, but I stupidly picked up a tractor battery and moved it after spraying the car-park on Wednesday and I have done something that is pretty painful, so I am back on the drugs, which make me feel very light headed, but do mostly work. However the new Golf Cart is great and not only helps on the feed round (the dogs love it) but also means we can spray weeds without having the back pack on, which is heavy and slow.

 

My neighbour Mark has just topped the overflow car park and the small fields, they look great now. David lent me Robin and he trimmed all the hedges, Peter Dowle has two of his staff coming in one day a week to fight with the weeds in the flower beds and the gardens are starting to look lovely. I am so lucky. And next week I am going to tackle the rest of the spraying and getting the front of the house back to how it should be. I have a tricky week this week when I am away for most of it which means I get nothing done here which is frustrating and no doubt I will have a huge pile of emails to deal with when I get back.

We have six baby Snowy Owls that we are rearing and the parents have one of their own to look after. Mark wants to train up a female, so I hope we get the choice right! We have just taken the now full grown Bald Eagle away from its foster parents, and very soon we will move the baby Lanners out into an aviary away from adults so they can grow up a little before we start to train them. The kites are doing very well and the one baby from the second clutch has joined the first three and is doing fine.

It’s nearly July – where does the time go and I have to get down to tidying up the website and the Falconry Weekend one as well, I just don’t have enough hours in the day.

No Rant today, too bloody tired, 12 – 14 hour days are OK for the young, but I am worn out!! OK not that worn out, although I have to say I do wonder where I get my energy – because I have no idea!!!

 

So what has happened in the last whatever it is that I last wrote. Sorrel is NOT having pups which is a big blow and I am getting puppy withdrawal symptoms, I may have to go and buy one!!

 

The birds are well, the breeding season is nearly over thank God!! It has been a good one, and we are generally pleased with what we bred. There are always ups and downs, joyous successes and sad failures, but Holly has done brilliantly, and she should be very proud of herself, we are all proud of her. I should add that without the excellent support of the other staff,  John, Jimmi, Helen, Robin and Mark, she would be even more tired than she is, but the team have done well and I am very proud of all of them. Of course I should say that none of them can skin a rat with quite the aplomb as I can!!

I should tell you about Gluey though. One of the five Long Eared Owl eggs started life in the incubators with a large hole in it, made by its mother. Holly covered the hole with glue (hence the name) and we did not expect it to hatch. However despite our concerns, it did and we were delighted. But all did not go well, he quickly went downhill and so put him on antibiotics, he improved, but then dropped back again, so with the advice of Neil we changed the antibiotics. Things went better for a while and then he got ill again, we took him to Neil’s, and he was prescribed a different antibiotic, again things improved and again after time he went downhill. We had to take Delectable to have her back toe amputated, it had become fixed in the wrong position and was causing problems (that went well and she is recovering very very well!) so I took Gluey in again, he had a very high white cell count and was very anemic (actually when Neil took the blood you could see through it which horrified me more than Neil), so different antibiotics ( he is by now the most expensive damn Long-eared Owl in the world!!!) and I am very pleased to say that he is so much better, that both Holly and I are for the first time more positive that he will actually survive, which we were not before. In the interim period he pinched out all bar one flight feather and he has seven tail feathers instead of twelve so his flying is more like falling. But they are growing back and he is the most charming person you could wish to meet. He does need a name change, but I suspect that Gluey will, as Holly says, probably stick!

Taransay the baby Condor is doing well, although still reliant on chopped food, we have tried her with whole chicks and half a rat, but she just sucks them into oblivion!!

 

The gardens are looking good, I had to give up and ask Peter Dowle for help, they were just getting away from us, so I have two of his people coming in one day a week for the next ten weeks, by which time I hope we will get back on track.  I do need a full time garden though.

We did Spring watch in the Afternoon about three weeks ago, the midges over there were awful and I was bitten to hell but the birds were very good, and I then had to go over there again (why do Springwatch have to choose such damn out of the way places to film) with Greeves to do Springwatch Unsprung which went well I think, Greeves was very good.

 

A very good friend of mine Barbara Handley, who was Chairman, driving force and person extraordinaire on the Hawk and Owl Trust, died the week before last. I had known her since I was 20 and she was a good friend. She died of cancer and very quickly and I miss her as will the Hawk and Owl Trust.

We are just getting close to the stage of training some of the new birds, the baby Lanners are starting to fledge in the aviaries and will be taken away from parents soon to finish growing up mentally. The three baby kites have started their handling and training. We now have a baby Great Grey Owl from Chris Barnard – thanks Chris, he is lovely and settling well. Middle Mouse – Gluey’s younger sibling is doing demonstrations already and is very nice, although he did almost write off the till by crapping in it!!

 

That is about it, or at least as much as I can remember after two hours of weeding in front of the house and two glasses of wine!

 

 

 

 

Apologies I know I have not kept up with things, there just seems to be so many things to get done, and emails take up an unacceptable amount of time as well.

 

The second day of the British Falconry and Raptor Fair went well apart from the Last Bird!!! Typical, Fortina was upset by something, and did a disappearing act, however thanks to Marshall telemetry and the Kay’s who helped enormously, Mark Kay is first class with telemetry and also very encouraging, I am going to ask him to come and do some teaching here in the winter - we found her about two hours later and she came straight in which was nice.

 

It’s been up and down weather, some good days and some miserable, but it has been cold as well. The early bank holiday weather was wonderful, but then it slowly got chillier and chillier, still, the trees are now nearly all out, its that glorious vivid but soft green of new leaves that is such a joy in the spring. The weather forecast for the second Bank Holiday was OK except for the Monday, however as usual they were wrong, and as I sit in my office this evening it is still dry. It has been however, extremely windy, It was so windy on Saturday that we were unable to fly after the first demonstration, just too potentially dangerous for the birds out there.

 

The breeding is going OK, we have lost a couple of merlin eggs and sadly the Turkey Vulture eggs were clear, but it was a first time for our male, so were the Great Grey Owls, not sure what their excuse is. So as with many breeding seasons, on those species we wait another year. Our saddest loss was our young Tawny Eagle who was doing so well with the Steppes, but suddenly got ill and failed to make it despite a rush to the vets.

The three baby kites are very well, as are the Long-eared Owls, we await the second clutch of Kites, and then the first of American Kestrels and Snowy Owls and the second of merlin's, and I think that will be about it!

 

I am keeping my fingers crossed for a captive bred Hobby this year too, that will be wonderful to train and fly. There is a remote chance of two baby Secretary Birds if we can raise the funds, that would be just the best. All the baby Lanners are back with various parents, the young Steller’s is about fledging and the baby Bald Eagle is doing well with the Verreaux’s.

 

Earlier this year we tried a Groupon promotion – never never again. Some of the people who came were very nice, some were just dreadful, one expected a free guide book as well! One woman tried to get her son in as a child although he was 17, when told that 16 is the cut off point, she said – but he is still my child!!! One wonders if when he is 47 and still  ‘her child’ she will want to get him in cheaply. The café benefitted, but otherwise we did not – it will be interesting to see if any come back, I have my doubts I have to say. And what most people don’t understand is that Groupon not only take over half the money, but if you don’t use the coupon – they take the lot and we get nothing!!! As I said never again, and I can’t recommend it.

 

But what has made me most angry is Natural England granting in secret licenses to kill buzzards to a pheasant shoot and a chicken farm. Only because the RSPB did a freedom of information act query, did we all find out about it. And someone in Natural England needs to learn to do some maths.

 

There are approximately 35 million pheasants released in the UK, the Game Conservancy advises between 700 to 1000 pheasants should be released per hectare, a little over crowded you might say, and an invitation to predators.

 

'They're quite a primitive bird,' concedes Rufus Sage from the Game Conservancy Trust. He estimates that only 40 per cent of estate-bred pheasants are shot, but that 90 per cent of them are unlikely to live longer than a year. Road kill accounts for millions. At this time of year, the lanes near our house in Herefordshire resemble pheasant apocalypse, their glittering corpses littering the roadside in a terrible statement of wasted lives. (will they be applying for licenses to kill drivers next!!!)

 

In 1900, the average bag of pheasants was approximately 25 per 100 hectares, rising to almost 150 per 100 hectares in the 1980s.  As a direct result of increases in rearing, nowadays nearly four-fifths of shoot providers rely on released pheasants, with an estimated 35 million pheasants released each year.  The total pheasant bag stands at around 15 million birds. That is less than half the birds put out!!!

B A S C found that, on average, 1-2% of pheasant poults released were taken by all birds of prey, Knott said, adding that a third of all pheasants are killed on the roads.

1.5 % of 35 million is 525000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If 10% of the buzzards took pheasants, which I suspect is way higher than really do, that would be approximately 10,000 buzzards if they took a pheasant a day for the approximately 120 days that the birds are vulnerable (and I have extrapolated up here every time) that is 120000 pheasants killed and eaten - not only would the buzzards be the size of a condor if they ate that much!!!! But that leaves a discrepancy of 405000 birds!!!!

 

Sparrow hawks are being blamed, a male sparrow hawk weighs 171 grams, a female up to 350 grams, adult male pheasants weigh 1600 to 1800grams, females 900 grams  to 1100 grams. A male Sparrow hawk could not kill even a young pheasant, a female can kill up to 1.5% of their own body weight, but rarely kill things that large.

 

The only other species of bird of prey that can kill pheasants are Goshawks. The RSPB put them at 410 pairs, actually I suspect that is a very low estimate, so let’s put them at 1000 birds in the UK, many living where there are no shoots, we have a ton of them round here in the Forest of Dean. So let’s give 400 the chance to kill a pheasant every other day each year – 72000

 

That still leaves 333000 pheasants unaccounted for if raptors are killing 1.5% of the 35000000 birds released, that is bloody ridiculous!! Natural England need to get a calculator and stop listening to shooters.

 

Of course if cars are killing 11666666.6667 how sad is that, and what a shame that buzzards are being killed because of shooting. I have good shooting friends, but this sort of thing does not reflect well on that group in society.

 

Shooting a few pairs is pointless because more will come in and take their place, are we then to see every pair that comes into a shoot given a death sentence by Natural England who’s aim is and I quote ‘to create a better natural environment that covers all of our urban, country and coastal landscapes, along with all of the animals, plants and other organisms that live with us.’ They are a government body, which is I think a part of Defra. The next will be Red Kites, Harriers, and Peregrines, all of whom might just possibly impinge on commercial farming of pheasants or chicken.

 

Ironically we applied for a license to be able to keep for educational purposes and breeding a pair of injured Peregrines, it was denied, they would rather we killed the birds.

 

Oh and by the way 75 tons of lead is sprayed around our beautiful country – and its toxic!

 

 

 

 

The Condor has hatched and what a charmer, Holly and I had to give her a hand because she  had started to be less active, so we popped her out, she was a little weak for the first few hours but is now racing ahead. The two lanner babies have gone back with Dawn Run and Hector, and they are doing a splendid job and two of their eggs are fertile which is great news. We have four baby Tawny Owls, and the Long-eared Owls have just started to hatch as well. More Lanners are starting to hatch and we await some of the small falcons starting to lay.

 

The weather has been great, not always sunny, but dry and reasonably warm, with a couple of really warm days giving us amazing flying from some of the falcons. The weeding and planting goes on apace, well actually it stopped for a couple of days as I have not had time, but I hope to get back to it soon. If anyone would like to come and help me in the garden I would be eternally grateful.

 

On Thursday Holly and Sally and I, plus Pan, Orion, Coll and Mucklerow went filming at St Mary’s church in Berkley, we were filming for a new series with David Attenborough. What a charming man and what a pleasure to work with, it was a privilege to work with him. The birds were very good, we were a little worried about Pan as he was asked to do stuff that was tricky before we had expected, but he was good, we then used Orion who was excellent, giving Pan time to get to the right time in the evening and then he did some lovely flying in the churchyard. All in all it went very well and I hope they were pleased, they should have got some good stuff.

 

I don’t know yet if Sorrel is in pup, there are not much in the way of signs, so we may have her scanned in a couple of weeks to see where we are, at least that will clarify the situation and I can plan ahead, particularly as if she is, they are due on a weekend when I am away damn it!!

 

Ah well, off to help with the last baby feed and then bed, with an early start tomorrow for the second day of the Falconry Fair, hope it goes well.