I was a little late up, and it was a lovely day, so I rushed, and missed my bath - damn it! Got a little work done on the lecture which is now tomorrow night, and then rushed again and decided to fly a couple of birds before the experience day, bad move, the lugger with no name, although he now has several that are unrepeatable, buggered off. That for those of you not into training birds of prey is a technical term for buggered off. So I trotted after him, it had been cold to start with so I had a sleeveless coat on, which is now stuffed in a hedge somewhere, I will have to try and retrieve it.

I had the telemetry and caught up with him on the ground about three fields away, however he was not ready to come in, so he took off and flew down wind. I followed, caught up with him again about another three fields away and he had taken off before I even got out the lure. So I followed him again, about another three fields!! He was consistent you have to agree, however the second field had a sodding great bull in it, so I circumnavigated that one, go at least one electric shock from a fence and there he was sitting on the ground. I kept dropping the lure closer and closer and guess what - he buggered off again. So so did I! I was now about a mile and half away from home, there was a course to deal with, the flying demonstration was immanent and I had friends staying. So as he was not looking like coming back, I came home. I forgot to pick up the coat.

The day went OK, although a little hectic with the experience day which Holly and Adam did most of, thank goodness. A number of falcons did not get flown, but otherwise lots got done. John and Holly went off in the afternoon to see if they could get a signal from the telemetry and got back about 4.30, in time for Holly to feed the owls. And we had an owl evening as well. So I shot off to get a fix on where the lugger was and the others finished off. I managed to track him down to a small area, but by that time it was dark, so I left him - I hope up a tree and not on the ground, the signal said up not down, and went back to do the owl evening. That went fine, although it did start to rain, but we managed. Once we had finished I drove back again to check the signal and he is still there. So it will be an early start tomorrow and I hope he has a cold wet night!