Wet and busy

Well first things first. This summer has not been the best. I spent last Wednesday doing 3 sessions at Cameron House in the rain. Considering the conditions the birds were brilliant. I feel this summer will be one of keeping the water proofs close at hand rather than the suntan cream and shades. At the end of the day it is not a problem as there is no such thing as bad weather just the wrong clothing.

I also got bad news about the wild buzzard i had to go out and collect the other week. I left it with the vet i use to see if there was anything that could be done for it. He felt it was best if it was put to sleep. This buzzard was riding it's luck a bit. I mentioned in my previous post that it had an old injury on it's head which had left part of it's skull exposed.

Even though the weather hasn't been great we are still getting through all the bookings. At this time of the year most of the work tends to be at the centre so we don't tend to be out on the road doing anything apart from what bookings we get at Cameron House. Saying that we are out doing a corporate event this Thursday.

The benefit of being in the centre more is that it gives us more time time to fly the birds or to be more precise - fly Bob the gyr x saker. We now have him flying free. We are not asking him to fly to the lure we just allow him to fly about for a bit and then bring him in. The only problem is he is so unfit that he is struggling almost straight away but he should come good. We took him away from the centre on Sunday and allowed him to fly at a farm that we have permission to fly on. It was a bit windy but he did ok. Hopefully we can get him back out on a regular basis.

This week is looking reasonably busy with bookings on most days so it is just a normal week at Strathblane Falconry.

good and bad news

The bad news first. On Thursday last week i was called out to collect a wild buzzard that had been hit by a car as it was found lying at the side of a road. It looked like it had been some sort of accident before this one. There was an old wound on the back of it's head where some of it's skull was exposed - about the size of a penny-  which for a buzzard is a big area. I am surprised that it survived that but buzzards are tough.

I took it to the vet i use who had a look at it and he agreed to hold on to it and examine it further. It was unable to stand even though it did try. When i picked it up on the Thursday i noticed that it's left leg was a bit weak. There was no sign of a break so the vet thought that it may of damaged it's spine. If that is the case then it doesn't look good for it. Fingers crossed.

The good news is that Bob flew free for the first time on Saturday. Bob is a gyr x saker that i bought from someone a few months back. He has been a bit difficult to say the least. He has crashed about a lot and has only really started to settle in the last few weeks. The result is that he has damaged alot of his feathers and is not looking his best. I am also not sure of the last time he was flown. I suspect over a year ago. This is the problem when you buy a bird second hand - you are not completely sure as to what it has or hasn't done. The person i bought him from said he did not have time to fly him. The main thing is he is now flying free and he hasn't decided to fly off. All i need him to do now is to start attacking the lure and i will be happy. I got to fly him Saturday and Sunday which was good but it rained all day today (Monday) so nothing was flown.

On a plus side the wet weather meant that all the travel boxes, shelf perches, blocks and baths were cleaned. All i need to now is for the rain to stop to let everything dry out.

As soon as i know about the buzzard i will put something on the blog.

quiet week

It has been over a week since i last posted on the blog. The days go so quickly.

Things have been quite quiet with just bookings at the centre and not much out at different locations but July is always a bit like that.

The birds we are flying at the moment is changing. We have stopped flying Sanda the Lanner Falcon and Gigha the Peregrine Falcon so they can have a moult. Gigha need in badly as he is missing 3 tail feathers out of 12. We have also stopped flying Oran a Harris Hawk. He has been flying for about 10 - 11 months doing events and activity days. He has been great fun to fly over the months and always very reliable but is starting to look a bit scruffy and has been plucking which some Harris Hawks can be prone to unfortunately so i have decided to give him a break let him moult. I will start flying him again in about 6 months.

As we have stopped working with these birds it gives us time to fly others. We are always rotating the team. We will start to bring Pele's a Harris Hawks weight down to get him hungry enough to fly. Last year we tried try to bring Pele's weight down a lot slower than usual to stop him from shouting which he is prone to doing. It seemed to work for a bit but he started shouting after a while so we will try again this year. He is the oldest Harris Hawk in the centre and another great bird to work with. We use him for lots of different things - activity days, hawk walks, corporate events and hunting . I do enjoy flying him and always look forward to getting him going again.

I suspect the biggest challenge will be Bob the gyr x Saker. He is a bird i bought this summer. He is if you like second hand as someone else has done his training. I am always a bit reluctant to take on / buy birds that someone else has trained. Saying that i bought him so we shall see. I suspect he hasn't been flown for a while. He has been very nervous in the centre when sitting on his shelf perch or on a block out front but as time has gone by he has started to look more confident. Unfortunately not before he crashed about and damaged a lot of his feathers. All we have done so far is ask him to come to a hanging lure which he will do straight off. He has done this while on the creance - the long line. So no stress but now we are going to let him go free and see what happens. This should happen this week so it should be exciting. It should make for an exciting blog entry.

The other big news if you like is the arrival of 2 more ferrets. Jo took on 2 hobs (male ferrets). They are only 11 weeks old and they have been called Hudson and Hicks. We now have 6 ferrets but i suspect we will be back to 4 quite soon as Patch and Fatty the old girls are getting close to the end of the road shall we say. They are over 8 years old and this is seemingly very old for ferrets but hopefully they still have a bit to go. Here's a picture of the new ones

We spent this weekend at Linlithgow Palace working for Historic Scotland. I always enjoy doing there demos. The talk that i do is totally different to what i  normally say. Their events are always well organised. The weather on Saturday was great but on Sunday it was wet and windy with high winds at times.

I have to wear a medieval outfit which the birds don't seem to mind to much thankfully. Myself and Artemis the Steppe Eagle had our picture taken with Fiona Hislop who is the minister at the Scottish Executive who over sees Historic Scotland.

Uist the Lugger Falcon flew really well in the demonstration on both days but Sanda the Lanner Falcon was mobbed by a seagull on saturday and while she came back she was gone too long and we ran out of time. On Sunday she caught the wind and was carried out while once again being mobbed by a seagull. I had to go and look for her. She was only about half a mile away and i caught up with her quickly thanks to the telemetry. As soon as she saw me she came straight to me before i even had a chance to call her in.

Bob the gyr x saker also did well as he spent the weekend on the glove being carried round Linlithgow Palace to allow people to take photos of me and him. He was hooded  but the hood was taken off so people could see what he looked like and he never caused a problem or baited off or flapped about when i took his hood off. He seems to be getting a lot more steady and used to his new surroundings.

Tomorrow we are back at Cameron House so back to normality