Although Sedge is a wonder, he really is a great puppy, he is not a labrador so went on Sat to see some pups the other side of Salisbury and came home with Acer! She is a very pretty black (needless to say) lady with a very loud voice and huge appetite. She and Sedge have hit it off pretty well and play violently, although right now Sedge is very miserable as he has just been stung by an autumn wasp and has been moaning for about half an hour. Terriers are very different from labs, if one of the labs gets stung they run to us for help, terriers run away, however he is recovering slowly! The picture is Sedge and Acer, with thanks as ever to Linda, who not only took the picture but helped me to make the weblog look more in keeping with our website.

All four young Lanner falcons are starting to go really well, the female particularly and their weights are creeping up. We are slowly grounding some of the birds to reduce the numbers that we are working with over the winter. Many of them need a break and a moult now anyway. Plus we have two Steppe Eagles to get out and train in October, so we will need time for them and the nights are drawing in.

The weather stays as glorious as ever, yesterday it was amazing, deep blue skies, vivid green mown field, the gates all smart and painted black, the trees rapidly changing into their reds and golds and browns and well behaved falcons, eagles and kites all flying in front of them to highlight the backdrops. All the owls are coming on and many of them now are flying happily into and through trees which is great, Eager, the Long-eared Owl (he did get a name change!) is amazing to see high up in the beech trees.

We changed the front post in the flying grounds, we had a lovely stone one, but many of the birds slipped as they landed so we put a wooden one with a great piece of cork that my friends in Spain got for us. The birds were very pleased for a day, but then we stained the post black to match the rest of the timber work in the field and that made it very dangerous as far as the eagles and kites were concerned. Hare still won't land on it!