Sunday, 17 November 2013
The second Owl Evening went well although it was a little more tricky than usual as our electrics are playing up, and neither the underground lights, or the PA would work without blowing everything!! Rob Moore (electrician) is coming on Monday to change and add some RCD’s ( I know all about RCD’s – don’t you!) and hopefully the problem will be if not sorted, at least more manageable. We will do some restructuring early next year and make it all less fragile.
The new hospital
room is looking great and we are starting to use it, there are still a few
things to finish off but it’s a very useful room and will be a huge advantage
to us. The first injured wild bird to go in is a Kestrel who looks like she
will recover fine, which bodes well for the future.
We have got the
brooder room all sorted out with proper electrics and it’s been repainted, so
there is just a good clean to get done and that will be ready. Next is the
clean out of the incubator room and all incubators to be thoroughly cleaned,
Holly wants to keep that all to herself!!
The outside of the
new building is all level and gravelled over and looking good. We have to knock
through the new door from the clinic to the hospital room – which we need to
give a name too. That will make a big mess, but gives us the chance to have a
good clear out and redecorate in there, one wall is damp and I think I know why
so we will sort that out before painting. Then the whole block of rooms will be
done and dusted – phew!! Just in time to go charitable and then build a new
brooder room and incubation room so we can turn the old ones into a treatment
room and small lab!
It’s a busy week
next week, I have two meetings, one in Bristol, one in London and I am hoping
to go and collect my (newish!) Range Rover from Jinny. There is however a doubt
because we don’t know if Sorrel is in pup or not. She is large (but could be
too fat!) is digging furiously (but she does that anyway) is very grumpy to the
others at times (but she can be a grump). Penny Carpanini thinks she is, I am
vacillating and generally the jury is out, and of course we don’t really know
when they are due as she was mated over about an eight day period. I need to be
here for her, so the car may have to wait, but I am hoping not as being in
London for a meeting helps me to get most of the way to collecting. We shall
see!! Here is hoping she is going to produce lots of lovely puppies.
We are also doing a
film job here with the Great Grey Owl on Wednesday and we have a group of MSc
students coming as well, plus still being open and an Owl Evening on Sat. It’s
good to be busy!
We close on December
1st, but as that is a Sunday, if the weather is good we will be
open, so watch the forecast and ring us to find out. We close for sure on the 2nd,
apart from a couple of experience days and the owl evenings.
Oh and if you are
looking for a good Christmas present, we are going to reinstate the Owl
Experiences, but in a different way. We are going to do Half Owl Days, which
will be great fun. We have a good team of owls now and will be able to have
guests handle and fly a good number of them. We are looking forward to it.
Tuesday, 12 November 2013
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Well, that is the
last my travels abroad for this year,
and I have to say I am not sorry!! Ever since I got back to Newent, and
understood finally what it was I had nearly lost, I am much happier at home
than travelling. I guess that makes me a sedentary bird,
rather than a migratory bird!
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!
The
trip back was extremely long, we left the hotel at 7.00am, with a short stop
for a cup of tea we got to Bagdogra by about 12.00 noon, our plane to Delhi
left at 2.30pm and the flight back to London did not leave until 3.40am! The
flight was uneventful apart from the fact that there were four squalling
children in our compartment, roll on child free planes. However when we got to
Heathrow things started to fall apart, it took ages to get off the damn plane
because some idiot decided that it was nice to let his small child walk rather
than carrying the damn thing. There was a huge queue at the immigration and
then I got to the Heathrow Express with just enough time to get the 7.58 train,
which would have got me to Paddington just in time, but it was cancelled, the
next one finally left at 8.20 and my train at Paddington happily left at 8.22
without me. I bought a new ticket (the bill for which I intend to send to the
Heathrow Express) and got on the next train to Gloucester, which was then
delayed because the doors would not
lock. So until my trip back from Argentina which was great and seamless
was not replicated on this one!! It
appears that all of us on that trip had the same problems and we all missed our
trains!!
It
is lovely lovely to be home, its quiet (Alipurduara was incredibly noisy at
night) my bed is blissfully comfortable (the one in India was rock hard, which
they all are), the gin is great and the dogs were really pleased to see me home
again. The Hospital is nearly done, the new smart hospital boxes arrived today
and very smart they are too, I can’t wait to get the whole thing finished!! It
will make a huge difference to us all and the injured wild birds that come in.
Our
new lawn mower is coming next week, I chickened out of collecting it and so
have got it delivered, it is coming from Carters of Swanwick who I have to say
have been wonderful so far in all they have done. I am looking forward to
trying it out!!
My
Hobby is flying really well, I am very excited about her, particularly as it
has not been great weather, she is called Killigrey. I want to be able to get her flying strongly in
case we do get very cold weather when I will have to stop flying and feed her
up. But so far the possible forecast worse winter for 100 years has not appeared,
although admittedly it is early days.
Friday, 1 November 2013
Argentina was good, the food was great, much
better than India that is for sure and I fell for the Chimango Caracara’s who
are enchanting birds of prey. The trip there was pretty reasonable, no
disasters which is always good, although it is a bloody long way that is for
sure. 
The conference was excellent, the World
Working Group for Birds of Prey and Owls did not show up, which I have to say
did not surprise me. Miguel was more tolerant about it than I would have been.
However I will say no more, but I will think it! The Neo tropical Network were
there and it was great to see them. The papers were excellent, the company very
good, the wine first class and all in all it was a great success. Ruth and I
had planned to go on three trips, we did two of them and they were very good,
but tiring, and I am not a serious birder in comparison to many on the trips,
who were very serious. There are only so many ducks I need to see before I get
bored, now raptors, that is a different matter, but LBJ’s – hummmmmmmmmmm. We
cancelled the last trip as we realised that with the trip and the travel,
meaning that we would arrive back in Buenos Aires after midnight, this was not
a good idea. So on the Sunday we went with friends to the airport to see if we
could get an earlier flight. The whole trip back was amazing, we kept thinking
that something would go wrong but it didn’t. We got on the 10.30 am flight,
went to the hotel that Miguel had recommended and it was great, had a lovely
lunch and a walk, rested for the rest of the day, got to the airport on time,
got through immigration and security like a breeze, got on the plane home and
got upgraded to business!!! Hooray, what a pleasure, thank you BA. 
I got home at about 12,00 noon on Tuesday, in
time to fly birds, have tea and see all the staff who were in. The hospital has
come on a treat, it is looking really good on the outside and right now the
plasterer is in and hopefully it will be completely plastered by the end of
Sunday. The boxes should arrive soon as well.
We have to wait until the plaster is dry
before we can paint and the tiles on the floor can’t be done until the painting
is complete. I wish I was going to be here for it, it is very frustrating not
to be.
The birds were all well, the dogs pleased to
see me, and I hope the staff as well. It is lovely to be home. It has been a
little damp towards the end of the week, but was a stunning autumn day when I
arrived back. My Hobby is going really well, and so are both the Merlins, the
Red-footed Falcon has a way to go, but he will be fine and Helen’s American Kestrel
is going really well. All three Lanners are coming on as are the two new
eagles, Steppes and Steller’s. My Red Kite is good but bitey! Holly’s is a
brilliant flyer but not focusing yet. The owls are all pretty much ready for
the first Owl Evening which starts while I am still away.
This next trip to India is mainly a big
meeting and reporting from all countries involved with SAVE to see where we
are, and what we need to do to get to the point where we can release vultures
back to the wild, and stop worrying about NSAIDs. It will be a while yet that
is for sure. I leave on Monday and am back at about the same time as the last
trip on the 11th, and then apart from a couple of meetings, I am
going nowhere!!
Everyone has worked really hard on the
hospital, and although there is still some stuff to do, it is getting there. It
will be a huge relief when it is done, it will also make a huge difference to
us all to have a proper facility to deal with injured and sick birds.
The aviaries are being sorted out ready for
the next breeding season already!! The volunteers and staff have been doing
really well with the nest building, Holly had a picture of John wearing one
which I think has gone on Facebook. I still have not worked out how to get onto
Facebook. Some of the birds may lay early, so we want to be ready. The
incubation and brooder rooms will be refurbished after the hospital is done and
Holly is looking forward to getting it all neat and tidy and ready to go.
The grass seed on the front lawn is coming up
nicely and we start pruning in the gardens next week. We still don’t know if
Sorrel is pregnant or not, I am certainly not laying any money on it anyway.
However by the time I get back things should be much more obvious.
Still have to get clothes ready for India, so
I must put in the last of the washing now.
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