Time for a bit of a rant I think. I just watched Earth Flight well at least I did until I got too angry to watch it. Someone needs to give all these cameramen and probably the editors a lesson in ethics. If you know your birds you can see that to get the large flocks flying dramatically (away from them please note) so that they can have dramatic film, they are either flying a remote helicopter with a camera or a small plane over to upset the birds, it is so obvious and in my book totally unacceptable. If these birds are stressed in that way and yes of course it is stressful for them, it just makes their survival that little bit harder. I don’t know my mammals as well as my bird, but I have concerns about how they get the footage they do with many of the hunts. A little more thought about the wildlife and a little less about dramatic film would be a good idea. 

 

The pictures from the Ruppells vulture and the African Fish Eagle which are from camera’s mounted on their backs are very poor and very misleading, as I suspect the backgrounds were put on afterwards in most cases. The species of the vulture that is being spoken about changes several times – do these people think we don’t notice!!!

 

No your average vulture does not fly at five miles high, one Ruppell’s vulture was recorded at 36000 above sea level, and please note that is sea level, it did not state how high the land was  below it, and this a onetime siting I might add. And normally vultures are flying at up to 10,000 at the most. Why do these presenters always want to give you the utmost fact without qualifying it with the norm. Its again misleading and can be dangerous to the species. However I suspect they don’t think about consequences, they are only out to get the most spectacular film regardless of how they get it.

I was just sent a link for a CBBC series – Deadly I think it was, the camera crew actually came here and we tested their ring of camera’s for them in my field, and actually the birds were amazing and I think we could have got some great stuff. They said they wanted to get wild footage of a Bald Eagle snatching a fish from the circle of camera’s – I have to say, knowing raptors as I do, I was pretty sure they would fail, and what we got was some very average footage of a trained Bald Eagle with overly long jesses picking up a floating bit of plastic with a bit of fish tied to it!! – out of a large black bin full of water. Then you saw some very poor flying of a trained peregrine (the usual 200 MPH quoted) flying to the presenter swinging a lure, well sort of swinging it. The back ground was heavily treed and the bird maybe got to about 100 feet, the speed was probably about 50 – 60 mph!! They would have done better to film it here with us, our falcons don’t have over grown beaks, and the background is a lot more open.

 

Oh and by the way team, the Bald Eagle is not one of the largest eagles in the world. The White-tailed Sea-eagle is larger as a general rule and the Steller’s Sea-eagle makes a Bald Eagle look tiny!!!

Why don’t you ask experts to help you with your commentaries, it would be far more sense.

 

Have you noticed how many adverts there are for gambling on the TV, all this bingo rubbish, how to get people to lose their hard earned cash, it’s a great shame in this age of hardship, still not to worry there are about as many adverts for loan sharks on there as well so if you lose all your cash gambling you can borrow more at an exorbitant rate of interest. And then if you fall over a stone, or trip down some stairs, you can use one of these lovely lawyers who tout for business, I have always thought that the fact that you see the adverts of the back of lavatory doors is extremely telling!!

 

Ah well, back to work!

 

 

We just about got away with the weather and the last Owl Evening by the skin of our teeth. The forecast the previous day was awful, but it improved as time went on and so the wind and rain was not due to start severely until after 8.00 pm, so we changed the format for the last one and did the outside flying of the three large owls immediately after the guided tours had all finished, then had the meal and ended up with the two smaller owls flying indoors, which meant the weather did not matter at the end. And it worked, it was very gusty nevertheless, but the owls managed OK just about. We had a lovely group and now all the owls are stuffed full of food until mid-January when some of them will be got going again for the February Owl Evenings and the early part of the season for our visitors. We have a cunning plan as well, we are going to start to do Evening Owl Handling and flying experiences in the Autumn, that should be very special indeed. Only six people on them and flying owls in the dark – how cool is that!!

The Hospital and Clinic look great, all done now, and a pleasure to work in,  cleaning the boxes and feeding birds in there is a joy with the pull out tray on the floor. I have always wanted to do that design and it works a treat which is very gratifying! The garage for the cars is done and all plus my trailer are safely under cover which is really nice to know. Next job is to sort out the workshop in January, and re-roof the tiny owls and the flying owls because the Onduline has had its day. That should not be too big a job I hope. We also re-roofed the lean-to outside the Clinic so it does not leak.

 My staff had their Christmas Party on Saturday evening and I gather they all looked wonderful and behaved!! And no I did not go, I loathe big parties and a lot of noise and discos are my idea of hell!! So I  always wish them the happiest of times and sit quietly here and look after birds, dogs and the fish, I get to feed round the following day as well because they tend to be suffering !!

 

The dogs hate the weekends in December and January as there is no official coffee time, they don’t really like the period between Christmas and the New Year either as there are no staff around, and they miss them all – oh and the toast at coffee time. Briza has just eaten my carol sheets!

 

I went Carol singing last Wednesday, I have to say it was a somewhat unpleasant experience because it was a howling gale and pouring with rain, by the end of about half an hour I had not a dry stitch of clothing on! After about an hour and a half one of the others said they were too wet and cold to continue, for which I was very relieved, as I was about to say the same thing. I don’t think I have walked home from the village quite so fast ever. It took a shower and a bath to warm me up again.

 

 

I have to say that the threatened coldest winter on record for 100 years has not yet materialized, in fact it has been about the mildest so far. 

 

 

I am pleased to say that I could get into all my Christmas presents without a chain saw!! And lovely they all were, thank you to all. I got some new hinges the other day for the new cupboards and could I get the plastic off, some is still on there. Its ridiculous, why to hinges need to be shrink wrapped in plastic, I actually scratched the metal trying to get it off.  NO MORE PLAS|TIC!!

 

 

Owl Evenings have been going well and Chris Sperrin from the Hawk and Owl Trust came up and did an Owl Prowl for our members. It was the day of all the wind, but thankfully the wind dropped in the evening and the event went well. I hope that we can do a few more, although it will be hard to be as good as Chris at mimicking owl calls – he is quite brilliant at it!!! Still there is always a phone apt that is pretty good!!!

We had a corporate Christmas Do on Friday, which was seamless, and they definitely got value for money. We started at 2.30 pm and finally finished up at nearly 10.00pm. My staff are wonderful, they worked really hard, including serving and clearing up afterwards, we did have fun though!!! Then on Sat we had the second last Owl Evening, boy we were lucky with the weather. The wind was very strong and made the guided tours a little tricky, but it kindly dropped in time for us to fly the owls outside and then the rain did not start until people were gone!

 

The new garage is just about finished, it is so nice to see the trailer, land Rover and new Range Rover sitting comfortably under cover. The van is also under cover outside the clinic.

 

 

We are down to just a few birds flying and all the owls will be grounded over Christmas. Then in the New Year we start again. We are keeping a couple of Harris Hawks going for staff that want to hunt them over Christmas and we are flying the two new eagles up until Christmas Eve, also the new Striated Caracara who is lovely.

Sorrel was NOT pregnant, which was very disappointing, we will try once more and then I guess the local sheep dog will probably succeed!!

Question for written answer E-012751/2013 to the Commission Rule 117 Andrea Zanoni (ALDE)

Subject: Continuing poaching of migratory birds in Cyprus, in breach of the Birds Directive 2009/147/EC, and violence against members of CABS

In Cyprus, there is widespread poaching of migratory birds flying across the island, with a thriving illegal market. This is due, in particular, to the existence of a local traditional dish called ambelopoulia, made up of small wild birds that are skinned and grilled whole, or pickled in vinegar. This dish has been illegal on the island since the 1970s, but sadly, is still widespread. Twice a year, therefore, CABS (Committee Against Bird Slaughter) organises an anti-poaching camp aimed at removing the tools used by local residents to capture live birds, such as mistletoe sticks, clap nets and electronic decoy devices. If these tools are on private property, the volunteers report the matter to the local police, who then seize the tools and start criminal proceedings against those responsible. The volunteer activists also seek out dishes based on these birds, which are illegally sold in restaurants, grocery stores, butcher shops, etc.

As reported by the CABS volunteers, cooperation with the local authorities responsible  in particular the APS Anti-Poaching Squad, Game Fund guards and authorities on the British SBA military base  was particularly successful in 2011 and 2012 and paid off with an increasing number of poachers being reported. However, the 2013 anti-poaching camp was characterised by a U-turn by the Cypriot authorities, who have withdrawn their support and obstructed the volunteers, despite the latter reporting the dangerous and isolated situation they were in and despite repeated acts of violence against them. The volunteers, in fact, have had the tyres of a car parked in front of the entrance to the Cape Greko National Park slashed, have been repeatedly chased by cars, threatened, were once beaten up and bludgeoned and, last but not least, robbed of a camera and a mobile phone.

Can the Commission therefore answer the following questions:
1. What measures does it intend to take to ensure compliance with the Birds Directive in Cyprus and react to the infringements currently taking place?
2. Does it not agree that the time is ripe to commence infringement proceedings in relation to this matter?
3. Will it contact the Cypriot authorities to discover why have changed their attitude, when previously they had given their maximum cooperation to the CABS volunteers?

 

This will be interesting to watch for the answer, its about time the EU put its money where its mouth is.

The trip was good, although started off a little poorly, my train from Ledbury to Paddington was an hour and a half late, so my plans to meet Ian Newton and Rhys Green at the check in were scuppered. I have to say that BA did not get good points for their helpfulness at check in, so as well as being stressed because I was late, I was annoyed before even getting on the plane. However things improved then because as I had to check in alone, and so because they were over booked and I was travelling alone – I got upgraded!!

On arrival at Delhi  we got on a bus to the domestic terminal and eventually caught the plane to Bagdogra in West Bengal. Most of the trip from Bagdogra to Alipurduar was done in the dark, but it was on much better roads than we travelled last time I went there. The hotel was OK, there were 88 steps from my room to the meeting room which sadly was in the basement . As I am not keen on Indian food, that part of the trip I did not particularly enjoy. The meeting was good and we had good representation from several new countries that were within the vultures range. There were good papers and plenty of good discussion.   All in all I think the SAVE Meeting went well and we seemed to achieve a good amount of work and decisions.

On the first day there we went bird watching, sadly for me we saw mainly LBJ’s which pleased all the rest of the twitchers!!!! But I wanted to see more raptors – they were hiding!! We did however walk across a river bed with a little water (that was fun) and crossed into Butan for about two minutes – which we did because we could!! We went into the forest but did not see a great deal apart from some lovely trees, but some of us did manage to pick up leaches, I had one on each foot, and Toby was bleeding dramatically from his leg. Of course we had to make up for lost blood later on, Toby and Chris replaced it with beer and I worked on Gin and sweet lime soda (no tonic). I have to say that the gin left a great deal to be desired, but if you drowned it it was bearable.

The meeting was held in the basement of the hotel and after three days it got extremely depressing as by the time we had finished each afternoon, it was already dark. So we rarely even saw the daylight, let alone anything else. We did have one short trip to the Centre and on the way back one of the other cars saw an elephant, and some pied falconets, did I – NO!

Briza is still lame, she has a torn cruciate ligament, which is going to take a while to heal. We are hoping that Sorrel is pregnant, although the votes are out on that at the moment, sometimes I think she is and sometimes I think she isn’t. 

 

There is talk that we are going to be facing the coldest winter for 100 years, but I am told that the people forecasting it are not experts, I have to say I hope we don’t, because it does make life tricky, but with the heaters in the Hawk Walk, and the new very insulated hospital, we should be able to manage.

 

Ah well, back to getting ready to leave, phone charged, better get the camera batteries done, notepad organised, clothes clean, dog food and fish food in, all should be well.

It’s raining, but my garden badly needs it and the pond could do with a top up right now. I am almost ready to got off to India this afternoon. Nic Masters Chief Veterinary Surgeon at ZSL are meeting up at Heathrow and flying to India and then on to Nepal later on the trip. We have a ton of things to do and my luggage is full of stuff that I will not be able to take as hand luggage so I have to check it in, I have not done that for many years. Prefer only to travel light.

 

The smallest Steppe Eagle is huge!!! He weighs a ton, but will soon start to get to a less unacceptable weight, he is doing well and was out on the lawn for the first time the day before yesterday. Muckle Roe is back on duty and doing well, she had three proper catches yesterday, just needs to learn to feed on the wing now and it will be a done deal. Chris has incredibly kindly given us her sister as well, so we plan on flying the two together once they are both ready for it. Our other kites are going well too. Most of the falcons are now flying free and coming on. Yeates is going to stay working through the winter so we can work on his fitness which is still a long way from good, mind you he would get fitter if he stopped sitting down!

 

The dogs are well except that Briza is lame and it has been difficult to get her to rest, so she is going to stay with Penny, her breeder while I am away, I hope she is going to be OK, but it will be very good for her.

 

The hospital is going on nicely, it is starting to look like a real project now and today the telegraph pole is being moved as it is in the way! The power guys have been great about it all. Abby our really good work experience is going to stay for another three months which we are really pleased about, it really helps in times when staff need to go on holiday.

 

Agatha, our Canadian Golden Eagle is going to a friend when I get back, she is just not suitable for a public aviary bird and will be much happier being trained and flown, she is a really nice bird, but too nervous for here and it is not fair on her. We have a new very settled female coming this week to go with the male. Watamu is slowly coming back to settling here, he is more nervous than he was and does not like the dogs, I guess because he has not seen them for three years, but we did a training session in the field on the last demo yesterday and he was getting there. A friend of mine has a daughter getting married in Watamu this year and now we know it is pronounced WaTAmu!

 

Other than that I am looking forward to being in India and Nepal although I hate the travel and I am looking forward to being home again!

 

Well we are all exhausted, but the Falconry Weekend was a great success. The weather has been amazing for the last week, my staff and volunteers have been working so hard, we just could not have done it without all of them. They all are a stunning group of people. As I write Burgoyne’s has finally removed the last tents and left the field, Brinsea who still had their stand in the field has gone, the rubbish has gone, the PA system gone back, and only the electrics which have been neutralized has to be got in and we are back to normal. All the people doing the flying did brilliantly and the comments on Facebook are in their hundreds and all positive. It was as in the last two years, a wonderful atmosphere.

 

It has been a tough time though, after Rush died, our young Snowy Owl had to be taken into Great Western Exotics to see Neil, at the same time we had to take Alexandria, an 11 year old African Peregrine, and Pleiades my beautiful Indian Tawny Eagle whom we bred last year. The Snowy Owl, called Lindisfarne  turned out to have cerebral malaria, two weeks of intensive treatment, including one of the doses of antibiotics at 4 am one morning and we thought we were getting there, but he slipped back and even after a blood transfusion from his mum did not save him. Although young, we are going to bury him in the field. We lost the other two as well. Alexandria had an inoperable tumour and Pleiades had the same kidney problem that all the young seemed to have and was in great pain, so it was not fair to go on with her. They are buried together. Its so hard to lose these birds who are such a huge part of our lives.

 

All the other birds have been going on nicely. The four baby Yellow-billed Kites are all catching now and just all have to learn to eat on the wing and stay flying and they will be a stunning team.

 

Holly’s merlin Jura is going to be a good one, flying very well, the three young Lanners are now flying free, we have two young Luggers who are more of a challenge, but then Luggers always are. Mark’s Barbary is going really well and flying more and more strongly. Even Yeates, the five year old African Peregrine that I have been struggling with for months is now beginning to fly more strongly.

 

We had a big grounding of birds on Monday, the Falconry Weekend was over, the end of the school holidays was done and we need to concentrate on the young team, so four Lanners, two Harris Hawks, one Buzzard, two Eagles, three Kites and several Owls are now stuffing their faces and either in aviaries or about to go into one. Thus the young teams of birds take centre stage and improve more quickly as time goes on. We have kept the smallest young Steppe Eagle, I hope it will be a replacement for Pleiades, although I have my doubts, but you never know.

 

Indigo scared us all to death on Sunday, he was looking very old and ill and started to shake, so Holly and Ben bundled him into the van and took him to Ledbury to the vet. He stayed all day and was scanned, he had been eating far too much and his elderly tummy could not manage. He did worry us though and I was very upset as I could not bear to lose a second dog in such a short space of time, but he is much better now, and almost back to his usual self. Since Rush died he has slept on my bed and Holly has promised that he can sleep with her and Ben while I am away in India!

 

Muckle Roe, my beautiful Red Kite gave us a fright on Monday, she had one eye closed during the day, by the evening, her face was swollen on one side and tilted, she then threw up and so we decided to take her to GWE straight away, Tom was on duty and did an excellent job and we waited for her to recover from the anesthetic before I drove home and got back at 10.00 pm. I missed a good Chinese with Biff, so Holly and Ben had it!! Muckle Roe looked far worse the following morning, but at nearly 10.00pm 24 hours later she was looking more cheerful. She came running out of the sky kennel (bearing in mind we are rebuilding the hospital right now and so have birds littered everywhere!!!) ate some finely chopped food and then turned round and ambled all by herself back into her box!! Bless her! Today she is back on flying duty and did three excellent catches in mid air.

 

A new book about father written by Dick Fitzgerald was launched at the Falconry Weekend as was a reprint of a beautiful book by George Edward Lodge. I have a copy of each. And the Philip Glasier Falconry Museum concept was also launched.

 

 

You just think that things are going well, all the birds are flying well, all the young ones are coming on nicely, the Falconry Weekend is getting organised well and things are on track for that. The young Martial Eagle is lovely and settling nicely, and we have been offered a male on breeding loan, and then something hits you that you really don’t expect.

 

We lost Rush today. I have been there for the deaths of 12 labradors, well 11 and orchestrated one from the US and it never never gets any easier. Two days ago Rush started to be very lame on and off, and he was crying loudly with pain. So I took him straight to Eden Tanners, who looks after the dogs for us. We had a job to get him out of the car and he was very quiet in the surgery. We could not find anything that was blindingly obvious, but they had concerns about him and so kept him in over-night. They did not have a peaceful night. He went through bouts of pain that had him yelling very loudly. Drugs kept it under control, and the following day he was X-rayed. This showed various problems with his vertebrate, particularly in his neck. I collected him early that evening and he was gently crying, but seemed better when we got home. However by 11 pm he was back to crying, I managed to stop him for a while, but by 3.00 am he cried for the rest of the night, it was not a peaceful one for either of us. I took him back to the vets the following morning and they gave him more injections for pain, but over the day it was patently obvious that it was not working. If I or someone he knew was with him it was bearable, but if on his own, he could not cope. Sam Smith who is a great animal chiropractor looked at him as well and said there was not a lot that could be done for him, particularly taking into consideration his age.