Thursday, 22 May 2014
I have a bloody cold, there is nothing worse than a summer cold and I feel very coldy! Not pleasant. The puppies are well, they now have their eyes open, they are still in the office with me, but I suspect for not a lot longer. As soon as they can get out of the box, they will move to the place that has been readied for them. I am looking forward to the time when they are playable with. And no, I am not going to keep them all!!! So I am looking for good homes, but I am not giving them away!
Breeding season goes on apace. The Snowy Owls have laid, so its only now a few second
clutches and we hope the Hobby's who are late layers in the wild. Helen has built them a splendid nest.
Karis has started to go up for the season, he did three superb stoops yesterday, sadly today the weather has not been wonderful, although nowhere near as bad as the weather forecast predicted, so he did not get up much height today.
The owl team is coming along. The SIX baby burrowing owls called Team Clouds as we have no idea which one is which, are doing really
well, although it does make for a chaotic demonstration. The Eurasian Eagle Owl Storm, who John has been working with is now huge and about to start serious training. The Asian Brown Wood Owl called Drizzle and being trained by Rhian is a charmer. Haze is the new Barn Owl - Helen's bird, Jimmi is having an Abyssinian Eagle Owl which he has to start taking home soon and it is called Muggy (the weather theme you see), Holly is going to take on the Hawk Owl, that Chris Barnard has given us, that has yet to get a name and Mark and I are going to train a Snowy Owl each - phew!! The Owl evenings this winter are going to be amazing!!
The three baby Verreaux's Eagles are doing well with their various parents, and the three baby Grey Buzzard Eagles are growing apace, one is from the usual pair and the other two from my pair up north. I could do with them not fighting each other, but they will grow out of that.
The Gardens are looking amazing, we get wonderful comments about them, we have planted some Hosta's down the archway of trees into the flying ground and they look lovely, I hope the snails do not find them.
We had to ground Benbecula because of the damn crow, I will have to do something about them nesting in the field early next year, they are so aggressive and Benbecula is a flipping wimp!
We have had in a number of injured wild birds, a Sparrowhawk with a fractured Radius, but it did really well as did the Little Owl with the same injury and both recovered enough to be released. We have another Sparrowhawk in now with a worse injury, but Simon has had a go at fixing it, so we will see how it does. We also had in an adult Buzzard but that was too far gone and sadly the injury was very bad, so he is now no longer with us.
Delectable has moved to the old King Vulture aviary and Pinotage to her old place, they are both very happy about it. Pinotage is flying really well although the only people who can be down there staff wise are John, Mark and I, all the others get bullied by her!
Oh well I am going to go and have a bath and see if that makes me feel better before feeding the chicks.
Sunday, 4 May 2014
We have eleven healthy beautiful Labrador puppies and a very tired mum. She started with a temperature drop on Friday morning which is indicative of puppies usually within 24 hours. She then started digging a big hole in one of the flower beds. She was wearing one of the birds transmitters so that we could find her. I stayed with her for most of the day and most of the night and apart from panting badly she was not producing. I left her for a short while, and in that space of time she must have gone into the sitting room and dropped a puppy, which was dead. I found it a little later.
After watching her more I decided to take her into the vets, he checked her over and between us we decided that she was so huge that she was not going to manage and so he would do a caesarean straight away, as it was likely one would have to be done later anyway. So he went ahead. Holly and I then spent the next couple of hours rubbing and stimulating puppies with the team. Twelve puppies later, one of which did not survive, and Shasta tidied up, we lifted her gently into the van, plus all the pups and came home. We have two girls that did not survive who will go down into the wood with all the other dogs, five healthy girls and six healthy boys.
I have to admit to being a little worried about Shasta, but she has been through so much I guess it is normal that she looks exhausted and pants a lot, however I will be glad when I know all is completely well, and so I will worry for a bit.
The first day of the Falconer's Fair went well, Mark came with me and two of the girls who volunteer here, it is nice to be able to take them. The birds did very well, not a wing put wrong, I was very pleased with them. I did a coping session and Mark did a seminar in the Hawk Board tent, and we did two demonstrations and then came home. I like to get the birds home for the night if I can as I am sure they do better, plus there were dogs and various others to see to as well.
We leave again tomorrow at 8.00am, the vet is coming to do a certificate for a bird that is going and so is going to check Shasta at the same time which I hope will relieve my mind somewhat.
The chicks are all doing well, the third Verreaux's chick is back with the Steppe Eagles who were very pleased to have a baby. Hemp has a baby Abyssinian Eagle Owl which she loves, its parents are looking after two wild Tawny Owl chicks that have been brought in, and they will get a third one tomorrow if the phone call I had comes to fruition! The vulture chick that we took up to Duncombe is also doing well, we are so pleased that the parents have taken to it, Charlie will be able to take down the temporary fence we put up in a week as we should be past any danger point by then.
The six baby burrowing owls have been filming on a lovely set built in the Indoor Hawk Walk, I look forward to seeing the film because they look wonderful in what they are doing. Briza rather likes being on the set too, which is not what they need, but she so likes to be helpful!
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