The title kind of sums up the last week.
I haven't been able to do a lot over the last week due to the weather - rain. The week hasn't been that busy with bookings and the weather makes it hard to get any consistency when it comes to training or working with the birds.
It was 1 of those weeks where even though there are not many bookings I am still busy. Some people think when you run a bird of prey centre all you do is fly birds of prey. I did when I first started doing this full time but I soon learned that it is not like that. Especially if you own / run a bird of prey centre. For example Tuesday last week was spent cleaning the centre, feeding birds, having a meeting with someone about promotions, speaking to Jim the IT guy who hosts my web site as he was getting a new lap top for me (the last 1 died), speaking with Jimmy who does all the electrical work and services the alarm in the centre and then going to meet another Jim who takes care of my car as it had broken down on the Sunday. It's quite handy that a lot of the people who I rely on to help me keep things working for me are called Jim. It makes it easy to remember names. There was no time to fly anything.
On Wednesday there was a booking and on Thursday and Friday it rained and things were fully booked over the weekend.
As you can see it is not all about flying birds. When you look after animals of any kind there is the cleaning and feeding that is the 1 constant and it has to be done. This is the less glamorous side of working with animals but is very important that it is done. Just because it is raining or it is cold does not mean that the cleaning can stop or you can't be bothered.
The training of Artemis has taken a slight alteration. I was trying to get her to fly to the glove but she didn't seem to confident with it. We would get to about 10m and be ok. Anything over 10m and then she wouldn't do it. She would however fly past me to a piece of food dropped on the ground so I am back flying her to the lure and it is going well. She is coming straight off to the lure from 30m away. Next step is to start flying her free which is always a bit scary.
I am not a big fan of eagles. don't get me wrong they are stunning and very impressive but a lot of hard work. All birds of prey are hard work to try and get the best from them but eagles more so. It is not just the fitness and time you need to put in but the responsibility of flying an eagle. Artemis is a Steppe Eagle and no where near as powerful as a Golden Eagle but she is still a large powerful bird of prey. It is not like taking a Harris Hawk out. There are place i can go to fly her. Away from right of ways and public roads. I will try and get some pictures of her flying for the blog.
The coming week is not like last week. There is a random selection of bookings to make a very interesting and fun week. There is a couple of hawk walks, some promotional work, a trip to Glasgow University and the weekend is fully booked
I laughed out loud that many of your friend's name are Jim! Looking forward to seeing pics of Artemis. My husband is currently training his first Red-tailed Hawk, Gracie. I'm sure it's nothing like a Steppe Eagle. Good luck!
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