Another Christmas over for another year, I had a pleasant and peaceful one with some very nice presents. We went carol singing last thursday and raised £180 for a local hospice which was good. I also sang in the carol concert earlier and went to the Christmas Carol service up in the village. So I have had plenty of carols, which I love. I have had charge of the birds since last Saturday, the staff all come back on the 2nd, although Holly and Adam are around and about. Holly helped me feed today.
I came back to check the birds and take the dogs for a walk which they are insistant about at this time of the year. Although poor Briza is struggling now she is so close to having puppies. She also gets me up at 3.00am every morning as she can't go through the night now!

The trained owls have been delighted to have a few days off, Hemp is starting to come into breeding condition so she will not come back on duty, Yorkley will take her place for the 2018 early Owl Evenings, I don't think he has done one yet, so that could be interesting!
We had a sprinkling of snow on the field this morning and the Malverns which I can see out of my office window are a glistening white. I am not sorry we did not have more as it does make feeding round much more difficult, although it also makes us appreciate the golf carts even more when we can't use them.


We are now looking forward to the breeding season starting, which should be the African White backed Vultures first of all, at least they were first last year.We now have six here which gives us good choice for breeding. Very sadly the male White-headed vulture who came here died very suddenly, we are not sure of the cause but he did it the day he was supposed to have a cateract operation. I am not sure it they really help a bird, I had Mozart done years ago and I don't think it made an appreciable difference to his ability to get round his aviary. This vulture would never have been suitable for breeding anyway, so our female will have to wait a little for a potential husband.

We have switched the merlins around, and I hope they will do something, we have also split up the Steppe Eagles hoping that absence will make the heart grow fonder, They have not laid fertile eggs for several years now and I would really like them to start breeding again,  particularly as they have recently been uplisted as Endangered in the wild now.

I am still struggling with the new microsoft 365, which I still consider to be crap. The new Outlook has no spell check, I can't find anything. I have to download anything to read it and I think the people who wrote the programme should be fed to my vultures. Other than that - I hate it!

It snowed! And snowed and snowed. We had about 6 inches by lunchtime on Sunday. Helen could not get in to feed the birds which was not surprising, so I was thinking I would need to do it, which was interesting as the golf cart was a no no! Luckily Holly and Adam had driven back the night before and so met me in the field as I brought up the dogs from their early morning amble.

Of course the two youngest dogs had never seen snow before, so that was fun to see their reaction. Concern at first and then they loved it. We fed the birds, opening the doors in the hawk walk and feeding the flying birds and then closing them so the snow did not drive in to the birds. When we built them we put in a window into the doors, so they could see out and not be in the dark, which is good for them and nice for us. I am glad that we did because this morning it was much to cold to leave them open - well below freezing. We left the flying owls to see if we could fly them and get some photos.

And we did, Haze (Barn Owl) was somewhat thrown by the first snow she had seen. Hemp was too fat from the Owl evening. Hoxton, Bramly and Orion were brilliant and did not give a damn about the snow. So we decided to invite some of the photographer members to come the following day. Only a few could make it, but I think they got some nice stuff. We did try Drift (Snowy Owl) but he was a little fat, I don't think he minded the snow though.

After the incredibly cold night we just had the ground was very crispy and the places where we had walked the previous two days were very icy. Just goes to show that you should clear paths on the first day before it all freezes.

Rob was rushing around on Monday trying to save flattened plants, I think most will be OK, although we did lose a few branches from trees.

I have to say I hope it is all gone by friday as it will make the Owl Evening tricky if it is still icy. Oh and Adam's lovely big gazebo got flattened and completely ruined and damn me that was the one thing that the insurance did not cover - typical I guess. So I am not sure what we are going to do about that at this point. Still it is nice to have a proper winter again rather than the tepid affairs we have had recently.

Another trip done, the SAVE meeting was in Bangladesh and we had it on a large boat, or do I mean ship in the Sunderban, which is basically a large mangrove forest opening out into the Bay of Bengal. It was an exhausting time, the flights were through the UAE which means longer in the air and on the ground so sleepless night number one. We had a night to recover before flying down to the nearest airport to the Sunderban and then a 3.5 hours drive over roads that have to be seen to be believed.


We then got shipped to the boat in a smaller motor boat and got into our various cabins by about midnight, then some food (which I can't manage that late). Then to bed, however after the drive and the boat moving and the anchor being incredibly noisy, there was not much sleep to be had. The boats were great although the cabin walls paper thin!

The huge advantage of having a meeting on a boat is that noone can slope off!! The boat moved downriver while we were meeting and then moored for the evening. We had a couple of
early morning trips in the smaller boat to bird watch (LBJ's). The most fun was watching the river dolphins and the Brahminy Kites.

All in all apart from only two nights of sleep in seven nights the meeting went well and much was achieved. And it is a particular pleasure to me to know that the first vultures in Nepal have been released back to the wild. Here is wishing them the best of luck.

But oh boy it was good to be home and I am not going to eat any rice until next September!

Hwever it was pretty damn cold after Bangladesh! We have had two Owl Evenings since, the first, the day after I got back was bitter, the owls did well, all worked but the benches in the flying ground were covered in frost! The later one was much warmer, althoug it looks like the next one will be cold again. I don't mind the cold, its nice to have a proper winter, snow would be even better. I only have one regret, I took up the carpet in my office because it was impossible to keep clean with the dogs, and it is now much colder in here!

Talking of the dogs, Briza was scanned on Monday and she IS pregnant, so puppies on January 2nd next year!

We have also now just finished taking out the leylandii hedge around the play area and the aviary area. It has opened it all up and will once complete look great I hope. Lots to do and not enough days in the year to get it all done!

Sadly our plan to have a good number of disabled vultures to help with their breeding programme from South Africa has been scuppered and we have been let down, a great shame really after everyone's hard work. However we now have other plans and are looking forward to the coming breeding season.

Well yesterday was glorious, my favourite autumn weather, a frost in the morning, the first proper one for I can't remember when and then beautiful sunny weather. All the birds flew well, Pippa's Saker finally went loose and now has a name, although I can't remember it right now! Faraday is as temperamental as ever, but looking very smart. The new Lesser Kestrels are settling, and the King Vultures like being closer to the visitors. Sadly Karis is showing his age and we are a little worried about him. I would hate to lose him as he has been such a very special falcon for many years. The weather today however has been rather less than glorious, which is probably a good thing as we had all morning in the Board meeting.

I have been doing work on my computer, although I have to say that we have just moved over to Windows 365, do I like it no, am I stuck with it - probably, but I do not enjoy these changes. They always cause me problems and it is emphatically NOT the same as whatever Windows I was using.

I am always told that the new version of what we are using is better, but generally I do not agree. Its the same as supermarkets changing the layout of the shops, it does NOT encourage me to buy more, in fact I have never been back to Morrisons since they did it. I like to know where things are, it saves time and frustration and the same goes for computers.


Looking at the news recently I have to say it seems to have gone beyond a joke with all these people being accused of sexually harrasing women. So someone touched your knee, so what? The only good thing I can see coming out of it is that it should reduce the population as men are going to end up terrified to approach women, so that may be a good thing as there are far too many of us anyway.

We planted 1000 daffodil bulbs last week and 250 bluebells, 200 aliums, tulips, fratileries and just have the hyacinths to go. The place is going to look amazing in the spring and summer..

Fingers crossed that Briza might be pregnant, she was sexually harrasted by a very handsome boy dog and we might just get puppies in January which would be great and there is a chance that one might be yellow not black!

The first Owl Evening is coming up on Saturday and we have made some changes to the evening which will I hope improve them to the benefit of the visitors coming on them. We still have a few places left so book up as they are great fun and our new Great Grey Owl Hoxton will be on some of them.



Adam has promised me that I can start to do some work on my beautiful Morris Minor, I want to get the brakes less scary and it would be nice to stop it vibrating so much that the rear view mirror is not helpful! Just need to find the time to do it. Which is not easy here and I leave on the 17th for the big SAVE meeting in Bangladesh.

And on that note, the first six captive vultures in Nepal were successfully released which is excellent news, here is hoping that they do well and survive to start breeding, they are old enough to do so.

Blogging ( that is not a very nice word really) has not been a priority this year as is blindingly obvious from how little I have done it, I will try to improve and get back to doing it. Incidentally one of my favourite words is paraffin, nice word and sort of a nice smell too!

The various new staff that we have had over the year have come and gone. Non bird staff we have three new people, all of whom are good and really coming on. Mary is wonderful, easy to work with, great with the customers and willing to have a go at almost anything. Karen in the new downstairs office has got to grips with all the vagaries of the finances and the centre and is really becoming a part of the team now. I think it takes a while for people to settle in really, it does not happen over night.

Alex and Joel are the new bird staff and with enormous help and training from Holly they have come on nicely. Alex has recently got a black belt in Jujitsu and is really getting into his own stuff outside work, he has started a club in Gloucester and is now teaching it - well done him. Pippa has moved out of the flat here and she and her partner have their own house! Exciting stuff, I bought them one of those moulded fish ponds for their garden and for the goldfish that we won at the fair in Ledbury last year.

The cafe has been a challenge this year with lots of staff coming and going, one of which badly let us down by just vanishing in August. The four girls who help out in the busy periods in school holidays were amazing, they really worked hard, and Holly Adam and I did a great deal down there as well. As we get towards winter it is slowing down and we are hoping that our new person will get to grips with it all as time goes on. Anyone who thinks catering is easy - think again!!! Particularly with all the rules and regulations that have to be adhered to.

I am bloody glad I don't have to do all that stuff in my own home, which is probably why I am so healthy!!!

We are looking forward to Rachel starting as marketing and fund raising person, she comes on board next month and will be ably assisted by Adam in marketing and Eileen Hammond in the Fund raising side of it all.

The summer has come and gone, I am looking out at a grey windy autumn day in half term, the leaf colour is wonderful and the gardens are looking great. Oh and if you have never had hardy Chrysanthemums  - get some, they are superb and just seem to go on flowering non stop and brighten the whole place, I am going to get some more! Autumn is my favourite time of the year.

All the birds are fine, we have more vultures, a Lappet-faced vulture arrived, so we are looking for a mate for him or her, the sex needs to be determined first. We have a White-headed Vulture as well, but sadly the mate we got for that has severe eye problems which we need to see if we can solve. We await the return of Neil to check him out.

I was given two male Sakers in the summer and they are both coming on nicely and we bred five Yellow-billed Kites, all of whom are staying here because we need them. I hope to find the funds to build a new enclosure so all the kites can live there and fly from it. I know where I want to put it.

We did lose Darcy Spice to a stroke early in the year, this is not something I have ever seen in any of our birds before. But his step brother Yorkly who is the most beautiful pale Great Horned Owl flew all summer to replace him. We are now getting all the owls ready for the Owl Evenings starting next month

I also tried to put Briza in pup in the summer but did not succeed so I am looking to try again soon. That will mean winter puppies which is not ideal, but all my dogs are getting older so to keep the line, one of them needs to have pups!

Very sadly we lost Moccas recently, she was killed on a power line in the field next door, she leaves a huge gap in the lives of everyone here and many visitors as well.

We have some wonderful volunteers and work experience people now and they make such a difference to what we can get done. We also had some corporate volunteers who bravely came over two weeks and cleared all the bull rushes out of the large pond, it looks amazing and much bigger now. It has taken a lot of journeys to the composting place to get rid of them all though and we are not done yet.

I travelled to Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania in early September to give a lecture on the Vulture Crisis in the Old World species and then straight onto Nepal and India on vulture work, it was a hell of a stint of planes and one I would rather not do again. I have to go to Bangladesh next month and then that is it for travel for a while I hope.

Its nearly flying time so I will look for some photos to go with this and post it as soon as I can.

The new  staff room

Its been a busy time, the old stock room and the rooms upstairs are all now properly sorted out, new flooring in both upstairs and down stairs. The end room is Adam's office, the middle room a work room for anyone to use and we will still use it for teaching on the falconry courses, although not as much. The first room is now a neat and tidy stock room. Downstairs it has been divided into two rooms, one for Pink Jen for her office with the new admin person in there as well and easy access to the shop, the other a proper staff room with table, chairs, sofa, desk, computer and bookcase with raptor books. All looks great.

Daffodils in the Hawk Walk

We are revamping the cafe, Angela is only wanting to come in on a very few days, so Tess has taken over, we have to move to mainly stainless steel for working so the front half has now been done - took a lot of work from everyone, the new fridge was so heavy everyone had to help lift it into place and Rob and Alex went with Holly and Adam to collect it. The late evening tasks finished at 1.00am as we are open and so the cafe had to be up and running the next day!! No pressure! Thanks to Tess, Ian, Adam and Holly, for staying that late to finish up. It does look good and in the next week or so we will hit the back - again a late night.

Alex started officially yesterday so we are back up to five full time bird staff and Robin on part time, with one other to start in May on a seasonal contract but if all goes well we want to make it fulltime, bringing up back to where we were last January.

There have been comments about missing staff that leave, but with all due respect to all staff who have been and gone, actually we carry on very well and really do not have the time to miss anyone!! That is no reflection on the individuals but more a reflection on the fact that this is a well established (now 50 years old) centre and if we could not continue seamlessly we would not be doing our job. So we do!

Guess who is back on duty

The birds are going very well, the weather has been lovely, it is so nice to see spring in the air. The wild daffodils are out as are some of my primroses that survived the drought when I planted them. The hedge has been filled in with new plants and we have moved that very pretty cherry tree from the box in the carpark to the field and it is doing very well.

Many of the birds are on eggs and the season looks like being a good one. Here is hoping that we have great weather for Easter as we have lots of fun things for people to do over the holidays.

This beautiful animal now dead thanks to poachers

One incredibly sad note though, that beautiful male Rhino that we photographed in South Africa has just been poached. It completely defeats me as to just how vile humans can be. The bile farms in Thailand that keep bears in the most horrific conditions just to get bile from them, these people are sick they really are. That Rhino
was such a beautiful animal roaming around in South Africa and now some complete moron with no brains will have the horn, just for money. And please don't try and tell me that it is because the people who actually kill the rhinos are poor - crap - they are organised criminals with weaponry and equipment and they are the ones that should be shot, along with the end users.

In South Africa not here sadly!

OK its time for a moan, I use Outlook as my email thing, occasionally I need to search for an email, but if you put the name of the person that you want to search it gives you three options, HOWEVER does it bloody give you the time after you have typed the name to get your mouse over the option that you want, NO, it is infuriating because it means you don't get the search you want and I can't get to the mouse quick enough. Sometimes I hate software writers, they really do not have a clue what the customer wants. And while I am at what the hell does dock the peek mean for heaven's sake!! And where have all my reminders gone!!! Outlook sort thing out please!

Its like super markets, when they change everything around - not cool. My idea of heaven would be a supermarket online that has a camera so you can 'walk' up and down the aisles and see what you want, just having a list does not help me at all!!

We have decided on our new bird staff member and he starts soon, it was such a close run thing that we are going to employ the runner up and he was so close it was a really difficult choice, as seasonal staff and hope we can do well enough this year to keep him full time.

The logs from the top wood, now gone and giving us better flying

We also now have a Wonderful Sale/Marketing/PR person, by the name of Jen, as we have a Jen volunteer here and new Jen has marvelous bright pink hair she is now called Pink Jen! I hope to have her new office sorted out by the end of this coming week. She will I know make a big difference to the Centre - so please pray for a great summer weather wise as that will help as well.

The breeding season is upon us, the African White backed vultures laid their first egg but sadly they moved it and it got covered with nest material and chilled so it did not survive, we are hoping they might recycle, but I am not confident now. The Eurasian Griffons have an egg and so do our pair up at Duncombe, so fingers crossed for them. The luggers have laid and the Burrowing Owls are also on eggs, so we are moving forward as ever.

Over worked??!!

The snowdrops are out, believe it or not we have mowed the Hawk Walk twice already and the field once - in February!! The wild daffodils are showing and the flaming wind is breaking the domestic daffodils.

Storm Doris meant no flying outside that day and we lost one big tree, luckily in the horse field (with no horse sadly!) and it fell in the best place, not hitting the fence, the hedge, any other trees, the road or people, good planning!

We are getting the bird team going well now, some of the falcons have been loving the wind. The team is increasing as we move toward March and the season hotting up as it were. It is going to be an exciting year with lots going on. Watch this space!

Guess who is back on duty!

I am now exhausted!! We have done four days of interviews, two days for potential new bird staff, one day for PR/Sales/Marketing person and one day of looking for a new Cafe Manager. There were 49 applicants for the bird staff job, so with much effort we went through all the CV's and brought it down to 12 that we wanted to interview. And I should say the quality was good on  all of the CV's. We had 16 applicants for the PR/Sales/Marketing job and brought that down to six and 11 applicants for the Cafe Manager job and aimed for six of those.

summer is coming!

I feel very strongly that you should answer every application, which is not the norm I have to say. So we answered all of them and asked 12, 6 and 6 to come for interviews. Apart from a couple who's emails I got wrong, once sorted we had all 12 applicants reply for the bird job and accept the interview date apart from one so we easily replaced him.

Similarly the PR, the six we asked all replied for the interview. The cafe Manager job was a great deal less successful. Two of the people we asked never even bothered to reply (not cool!) one we had to chase to see if he was interested in coming (why would you apply if you weren't!!).

All of the twelve bird staff interviews arrived on time, as they should, interviewed and it was a seriously difficult choice to move to the next stage because the quality was so high. The PR/Marketing/Sales similarly all arrived on time, all interviewed well and again it was a difficult choice, but we have now the right person for us I think and we are really excited that she is coming.

The cafe manager position - well -  the first person due never rolled up and eventually we, having phoned and left messages heard that she had forgotten to come!!! What does that tell you I wonder. The next four were great, all on time, some more suited to the job than others, but it was really cheering that they had come to interview. The last one not only never rolled up, but had actually been phoned two days previously to see if he was going to come, said yes, but still never arrived and never bothered to even apologise. Well we will not be bothering to see him again and whoever does employ him - be aware, he is apparently not reliable or polite!!

Hope to be training one of these this year

Tomorrow we do the work day with the six potential bird staff that are through, I had planned to have four or five, but they were so good, that we feel that we need to know more. And for the six that did not make it, it was an incredibly difficult choice. I always wish I could employ all of them - just need to win huge amounts on the lottery to do so.

Tuesday I am quite hoping will be a quieter day apart from the last of the Owl Evenings and
Wednesday I fly to Spain for the Multi species Action Plan overarching workshop for vultures. Back home late on Saturday night. I really hope I do not have to do any traveling for a bit after that.

The first viable egg of the year is getting ready to hatch. The weather has been bloody freezing and the poor people in the flying field have been blue with cold, BUT seen some amazing flying. The dogs are moulting all over all the carpets, I swear I sweep up a Labrador a day!

Apart from that life goes on and the Centre slowly moves into its 50 anniversary year as February races towards its final day.

My last free weekend is nearly over. As from now as we open on Wednesday, no more weekends until December, oh well. The dogs will be very pleased when February 1st comes, they hate December and January, particularly the weekends as there is only one member of staff here for a couple of hours and otherwise they are stuck with just me!!

Yesterday was beautiful, the sun came out, it felt like a spring day, the wild daffodils are showing, the snowdrops are coming out and I almost regretted that we were not open - almost!! However today has been less than pleasant and we would not have been busy.

The Owl evening on Friday had a lovely bunch of people which was a good thing because sadly the weather forecast was spot on and the rain start at about 5.00pm. However it was mizily rain, not really heavy and we managed to get through the evening without too many problems.

We are down on flying birds because of Avian Influenza, we have not had the normal numbers of birds flying because of the risk. We start up with a number of them tomorrow, so we will get up to speed reasonably quickly I hope.

I have spend hours going through CV's in the last week, we have had good applicants for all the three jobs we have available. Holly has done a stint on the bird staff applications with me as has Rosie, Adam worked on the cafe staff applications with me and Eileen on the PR/Marketing/Sales group with me. I am CV'd out at the moment!

Next come interviews - four days of them! February is going to be a very busy month! But it will be good to see visitors again as we settle in for the 50th anniversary year.