January 3rd already, each day is two minutes more of daylight, and it begins to show when the days are clear! Holly and James came to dog/house sit for me while I went to stay with a friend for one night on Friday, which meant I could have a drink and not worry about driving. The minor roads, and I do mean minor roads were pretty icy, as indeed is our road outside the Centre. There has been a water leak for months above us and it runs down the road, the Water Board have been told several times but done bugger all about it. However now it is frozen and there is an ice rink outside our entrance, I wonder how long it will be before they fix it!!

It’s a beautiful day today, as was yesterday, I was in Wales yesterday and there was a light dusting of snow on the hills, it was quite stunning to look at, and I needless to say forgot my camera! Today it is cold again and the ground is frozen, which is tough on the small wild birds. We still have not had snow here, which is probably a good thing, although it would be fun for a short while, but last night it suddenly warmed up for a while and I thought we were going to get some.

I took Bay Middleton with me on Friday and we flew him on the grounds where I was staying, he was very well behaved and it is so lovely to see him fly, maneuvering between the trees and generally having a good time, there was not much about for him to chase though, but the day made up for it. We start the other working birds off again tomorrow, we have to have them ready to open in just under four weeks and that takes a bit of time. Not that the young birds have had much of a break, just over Christmas.

The African Spotted Eagle Owls have one egg, Athena and Hemlock look imminent for laying. We just about five nest ledges to get up this coming week, and I want to get Zoomesh on the front of eight of the owl aviaries in the owl courtyard, it makes such a difference to the look of them. Hopefully the Griffon Vultures will lay soon as well, and the Verreaux Eagles are mating daily, we are crossing everything for the Steller’s too, that would be wonderful. The Golden Eagles are very settled and looking good and the male African Fish Eagle is in breeding condition, so we are hoping he might possibly be brave enough to breed, that would be wonderful, even if she is a cow of the first order.

Life gets back to more normal tomorrow will nearly all staff back, and we start the run up to being open again. The new enclosure block is coming on, here is a picture of the back of it. Once that is complete, there are only a million other jobs to get done before opening!