It was a beautiful day yesterday, warm and sunny and we were very busy, which is good, but tiring by the end of the day, we had four people on the falcon experience day, and I don’t think I stopped all day. Having said that, I did take some time off first thing and took Mollie out for a ride, she was very good and we went up onto May Hill for the first time, she behaved excellently even going past another horse on the way back down again. Today Sally came and lunged her, she does not know how to walk well on the lunge but that will come.

My little Merlin came to the lure yesterday for the first time, which is good, I am so looking forward to flying him, it is a long time since I have flown one. Holly’s Barbary is coming on nicely as is my one, and the three new Lanners are now all flying loose, as are two of the three Yellow-billed Kites. Bush Master is excellent and doing really well. Simon’s Great Grey is flying beautifully, and he is very fond of her, interestingly all the others in the clutch we had her from died, just goes to show what a good vet Neil Forbes is and he most definitely saved her, him and Simon.

Adam has a new Steppe Eagle just out, who is very pretty and hopefully will fly well. We have grounded Hard Tackle and two of the Lanners to make room for the new birds, and because they really did need a rest. But we got out Tewa so that we have one adult falcon going through the winter.

We moved the two baby Steller’s Sea Eagles today, mum and dad have had enough of them now and need to have some time on their own, so the kids are in an aviary together until we decide what to do with them. On the other hand the White-tailed Eagles have been fighting again, so we have had to take steps with the female again.

The doors for the winterizing of the Hawk Walk are done and put up on the top side now with catches to hold them open. Next we have to do the bottom side and then line each compartment and paint them, still we are moving on as they say.

Today started damp, but improved, however I am a little sore as Sorrel bowled me over in the field at our early morning walk, I hit the ground and more importantly split my early morning cuppa!! Not good, so I have been stiff all day, a good excuse for ibuprofen and gin – a well-known combination! Oh and yesterday after a very long day we picked damsons and made four litres of damson gin, my recycle bin looks a little concerning with five empty bottles of gin in there!! I am going to give blackberry gin a try to make this year as well!

I put on facebook that if anyone has any time in the next two weeks, we could do with a hand painting and tidying – let me know!