Monday, 22 February 2010
After high numbers of volunteers on Friday, we were down to one on Sat and none on Sunday, and we missed you all !! It was a beautiful weekend, the sun came out both days and on the Sunday it even got warm enough at one point for me to walk round with no coat, which is the first time for months. Simon is back, he had a good trip and the breeding is going well in India which is very nice. The vulture egg here was fine, but the Tawny Eagle egg that we thought was OK, had stopped developing probably before we even took it. The weather has been so cold that we are going to have to either redesign the nest ledges or take eggs straight away. But to cheer him up the Verreaux’s have laid, and it is the younger pair, so that is a first time for her, and she was bred here, so that is extra special. Keep your fingers crossed for that to hatch well, and for the Tawny Eagles to recycle, as they are almost more important for us.

We were very busy on Friday – surprisingly so considering the snow, and the same on Sat, although Sunday was quieter, I can never understand why the last Sunday of the half term and the last day of the school holidays is always much quieter than the other days. Still those photographers who came got some great photos. The way the light reflects on the underside of the birds as they are flying just looks amazing as you will see with a couple of photos from Linda.

Today Dick did a good clean of the Hawk Walk outside; it was too cold to bring the birds outside as it has been a very bitter day with a cold northerly wind. John and our new volunteer Liz, after having helped Adam with cleaning Barn 4, have started on the black stain on Mozart’s block and it looks amazing! Mike finished changing the guttering around so that the water from the small owl block goes into the new drains, and has put in the new gate posts for the end of the Hawk Walk, so soon that will be secure again – hooray. I have a baby Indian Eagle Owl that will be living in the house for the next few weeks in the evening as I am determined that we will have dog proof owls, it’s a pain if they decide that they don’t like the dogs.

I have to say I did end up pretty damn angry earlier in the day. It looks like I may have to go to Scotland for a court case, which quite frankly is a complete waste of my and their time as the origins of the case are over two years ago and I am blowed if I remember much about it at this point in time. However I have been a witness before several times and even in the US, and never have I been concerned about it, and always the court has been polite in the asking. This time however instead of sending me a letter telling me to be at the court, I got a phone call from the local police telling me I had a summons. Now that is enough to spoil anyone’s day. He then explained about it, and the policeman is going to have to come up here to give me the summons, which was incidentally written on December 10th – it is now February 22nd, so if they had just sent me a polite letter on December 10th I would have a) known about it straight away, and b) not had my time and the police’s completely wasted, plus c) getting me extremely pissed off at the extreme and unnecessary Scottish rudeness in asking one to come to court.

It is much warmer (!) this evening, the snow is still melting and there is not a frost as yet, so perhaps we will get back to green and spring in the near future.



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Hello

I have to say that keeping a weblog can at times become compulsive and at other times a chore. Sometimes I am berrated for not keeping it up and sometimes I get wonderful comments from people who follow the news of the Centre.

It is fun to share the daily goings on here, some good and some bad, some funny and some sad, but all a part of our daily lives.
And as I said before its a pretty cool to be here and it is a great place to visit, you should try coming and watching the birds and meeting the staff and of course the dogs.

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An interesting video on Lead

An interesting video on Lead

I find it staggering that people who want to hunt don't see the value in changing their ammunition from lead to a safer product. We have stopped using lead in petrol, in paint, in our water pipes, but they still want to use lead - ah well, apparently eating it not only kills birds but leads to reduced intelligence in humans......................

NO ONE is asking you to stop legal and genuine hunting, they are just asking you to change your ammunition!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHZGQ8i8AwI

HC

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