Well my bloody computer is not doing well today, it had for some reason moved all my files to heaven knows where this morning, they came back, but we don’t know why and I just lost half of this text here because it is locking up and has to be crashed to get going again. Sometimes I hate them and they are always too damn slow as well!

Another week gone, more than gone, we had our first all day rain the day before yesterday, which was a bit of a shame as we also had a teaching photo day, but actually the people on it were amazing and they did well, learnt a great deal and got some good photos. I always say to the photographers that if they get one good to great photo of each bird they are doing well. The Wild About Photography day on Sunday went well too, the weather forecast was wrong as usual thank goodness and they managed to get some lovely photos of the birds on the side of May Hill, particularly I thought the Kestrel with the huge visa in the background was stunning.

Mollie is going well, learning a great deal from her lessons, still very bouncy on occasion out on a ride but I think she will slowly learn that gates, bikes, people, dogs, drains, pheasants, pigeons, squirrels and a number of completely invisible things are actually not going to kill her!! Oh and sheep, apparently they are particularly dangerous!

The three merlin's are doing well, Simon is getting his going and the other two are flying nicely. We have got Lady Isabel out, the female Barbary Falcon and Simon is going to fly her, he is also flying his goshawk and already catching stuff again. Mine has gone on loan to Mike Cordell as I have a nightmare of an autumn with stuff to get done. Also I really want to get a couple of books on the go this winter before I forget all that happened!!

Adam and Robin were filming this week and it all went very well, a film called the Wedding Video, the birds were excellent and got the shots very quickly, it’s nice to be professional, which is more than I can say for the restaurant that I have just come back from. The Olive Tree in Ledbury is not a place I would be able to recommend because I can’t stand bad service. We got there at 8.00pm, there were a large number of us but that should not be an excuse for bad service, in fact the other way round. I had to ask them to come and take the orders, several tables got served before us although they had come in some considerable time after we had got seated. Finally after waiting an hour I told a waiter that if I did not get my meal in five minutes I would be leaving and not paying for my order, they just about managed it, but it was in fact probably more than five minutes, so I will not be going there again.

Emily Shepherd from Swansea University and Rory and Xavier came today to do more research on bird flight, it is very pleasant to work with these scientists and they are fun to be around, and interesting. I feel privileged and lucky to be able to be involved in things like this.

Autumn is very much here now, the leaves are turning fast and the mornings can be chilly, I even lit the fire one evening. I do so love the autumn, and we are now getting ready for the Winter Owl Evenings so look on our website for details, they will be fun again this year.