Wednesday, 6 April 2011
We heard a Cuckoo today!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hooray spring is really here. It has been a simply lovely day, great visitors, good flying, and Lady Isabel pulling off a stunning stoop. Adam and Mark flew the Steller's which is great and he did well, flying at 11lbs 5ozs!! Adam is clearing in the wood and it is starting to look great, the maze is also coming on a treat. I had to do the shop and entrance on Monday because Jan has caught a tummy bug from her husband. I am not that good at working the tills and that is an understatement. I am not sure I am shop material, don’t have the patience for it, and I always have a ton of other things to get done.
We have two baby Steller’s!! This is great news I am going to end up with a flock of them!! We had an interesting end to the day on Sunday, there was a quiet but intense radio call from Adam to John asking him to go to the Steller’s in the Hawk Walk, it was the sort of call that all staff move rather fast too! I was in the process of putting down my Barbary falcon back on her perch and the call took my concentration enough that I forgot she bites faces, so I have a hole in my eyebrow!! I walked over to the Steller’s compartment and there was John kneeling on the ground, the Steller’s with its leash still tied to the metal spring tie, but the steel wire no 
longer attached. John gently picked up the leash, he had no glove! And the Steller’s walked quietly back into its compartment and hopped back onto its shelf perch, as if to say ‘I don’t know what happened, but I am glad you came and put it right because I should be here!’ We all gave a sigh of relief having chased one fish eagle round Gloucestershire this year, we did not relish the idea of another one!
longer attached. John gently picked up the leash, he had no glove! And the Steller’s walked quietly back into its compartment and hopped back onto its shelf perch, as if to say ‘I don’t know what happened, but I am glad you came and put it right because I should be here!’ We all gave a sigh of relief having chased one fish eagle round Gloucestershire this year, we did not relish the idea of another one! We had a busy weekend, with nice weather and the promised rain showers did not materialise until five minutes before the end of the last flying demonstration, which was very well timed, and today the promised heavy rain has not arrived, for which I guess I am happy about, although the grass and flower beds desperately need rain at this point. I had to have the loo in my bathroom fixed today, it is a Saniflow, and it will take me a while to recover from the cost!! And all just to have a pee and a bath!! Ah well, at least it will last another ten years, at least it better!
Hemp has laid two eggs and let us take her jesses off today with no problems, in fact she was sweet about it. It is lovely to see her settled and happy and sitting on her eggs proudly I was staggered to see that the Bird of Prey Center that I left in South Carolina, that preached about ethics and good behaviour, is selling Barn Owls on the Internet!! Wow, that is a turn up for the books! How the supposedly ethically minded are fallen! Mind you anyone buy from them needs to be very careful, because unless they have obtained fresh blood lines and I suspect that is not the case, all the birds they are producing are siblings breeding with siblings, and with the Barn Owls siblings from siblings breeding with siblings and that is not good, it will lead to very poor stock and should not be done, am I surprised no, sadly not. A good friend of mine, Arthur Middleton took me to a lecture in Laramie last November, it was by E.O. Wilson, whom I gather is very well known in the US, although I have to say I had not heard of him, however the lecture was superb, and a pleasure to be there. One comment he made struck me as so accurate I jotted it down, I am saving that one for you, but I then thought, I wonder if he said other great things, and so looked for quotes, here is one that is very relevant to us all.
If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
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