Well I hope you had a Merry Christmas.
Life in the center has been quiet. There hasn't been that many bookings but I suspect that has something to do with the weather. All last week it was below 0C so not the type of weather that makes people want to go outside. Also the roads have been icy or covered in slush. All in all the type of weather that makes people want to stay in doors.
The center still has a good covering of snow and ice even though the temperature has managed to get above freezing for the last couple of days and all the snow and ice has started to melt. It has been great not having to de-frost pad locks just to get in to the center and also lock up at the end of the day. The only thing is everything is so damp. The place has been covered in fog for the last 2 days and nothing is drying. Alot of the birds are looking a bit damp and I never feel they fly well when they are like this. You can see it on the end of their tail feathers and wing feathers. Hopefully we can get some dry weather with a little bit of sun to try and dry things out or a breeze to to do it. We shall wait and see. The weather is 1 of those things I try not to stress about as there is nothing that can be done to stop it. All you can do is deal with it.
We did have 1 booking on Boxing Day. We were over at Cameron House to do a demonstration for the guests. We had a good number of people turn up even though it was snowing for a while and we were able to give everybody who wanted a shot of flying a bird a chance to do so. Alba (Barn Owl) was the stand out bird. I only started to fly her again the other week after 4 months off and with the weather and it being quiet she has only flown once in the last 2 weeks. When we were doing the demonstration there was a lady in a wheel chair who asked if she could fly her and Alba was perfect. Landing perfectly on the glove. Saying that the other 2 birds that we flew - Lobey (Turkmanian Eagle Owl) and Oran (Harris Hawk) were both great as well. We are back at Cameron House on New Years Day to do another demonstration for the guests who are staying for New Year.
I have brought Artemis's weight down again and rather than have her flying to the lure (which keeps getting lost in the snow) I have been asking her to fly to the T perches on the front field. She has been doing ok but some days she doesn't seem that keen so she may also have to come down a bit to make her that bit more keen. Hopefully in the next day or 2 I can start flying her back to the lure. This though will help her fitness.
At the the moment I just want the festive period to be over. Nothing really happens. The phone is quiet everybody is off. The good thing is the beginning of January is actually looking quite busy - well for January anyway. It is never the busiest of months for bookings. I do have 2 bits of ground to go and look at after the New Year. The people who the ground have said that I may be able to hunt on them after we meet. All I need to do is get out there and see if the ground is ok. I always get quite excited about exploring new bits of ground for hunting. I am never quite sure what I am going to find. I will let you know how it goes and what they were like once I have seen them if the owners say yes.
I did have some sad news on the 22nd December. I had to have Fatty (Ferret) put to sleep. She hadn't been the most steady on her feet over the last few weeks but she was getting about the hutch until recently where I had noticed that she couldn't walk on several occasions and seemed a lot more sleepy. I spoke to Jo who is vet and she had noticed the same. We decided that as she was struggling to get about the hutch the time had come for her to be put to sleep. It was no real surprise as her sister Patch had died 6 weeks ago. They were over 8 1/2 years old and for ferrets that is old but it was still sad though. It is kind of the end of an era. Patch and Fatty were with me from the start.
On the plus side the Winter Solstice has been and gone so the days should start to get longer now. Have a great New Year and spare a thought for those who will be working over the New Year period.
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Monday, 20 December 2010
More cold weather
I don't have much to tell about the last week.
The centre is quiet with bookings at this time of year. Everybody is focused on Christmas. Normally I try to use this time of year as a time when i can get out to fly the birds for myself. but the weather this year has made that difficult. There hasn't been that much snow falling in the last week but it has been cold. I think the highest it got to was 1C in the last week and it rained only for the skies to clear and the temperature to drop and everything froze so the place was like an ice rink.
It also takes longer to get things done. To get into the centre we are still de-frosting padlocks. Also working in sub zero temperatures does take it out of you. I wear the correct clothing, I keep moving and I stay warm so it is not a problem until I come home and sit down then I feel exhausted.
How I feel is nothing to what the birds are dealing with. We are not flying that many at the moment. I am down to 1 Eagle Owl - Lobey and 2 male Harris Hawks. There are other birds who are only a couple of ounces away from flying weight and I could have them flying within a couple of days notice but when it is like this I don't want to take any real chances with my birds so everybody is given plenty of food if they are not needed. There is no point having birds sitting at flying weight and them doing nothing or flying just for the sake of flying. Saying that there is no bookings between now and Christmas day so Lobey got a rat to eat and Pele got some rabbit today. So that leaves Oran the other Harris Hawk.
At the beginning of last week I was quite busy with 5 bookings in 3 days. We had a couple of hawk walks over at Cameron House with Pele and Oran. Then there has been nothing for the last 4 days. Until today where we had another Hawk Walk at Cameron House. Oran was on form and flying about looking for things to catch. He was chasing crows and pheasants. He didn't come that close to catching anything as he is not that fit but it was entertaining for the guests to watch and to see him putting in a bit more effort.
I do have a couple of displays coming up over the festive period at Cameron House - Boxing Day and New Years Day with a few bookings in centre so I will be spending this week getting birds ready for that. Slowly bringing weights down so I am not putting the bird under to much pressure with the cold weather. When the weather is like this I don't want reduce the birds food by too much too quickly. You want to be doing it gradually. The last thing you want is for the bird to basically go hypothermic and die on you because you didn't give it enough food so it doesn't have enough energy to keep itself warm in this weather.
The only bird whose weight is being brought down (slowly) is Artemis. I have got her down to 6lb14oz so we are getting close. I will start flying her to the lure again trying to build up her fitness and get her back into a routine. Hopefully it stays dry with no snow so I can try and get her going again.
One more thing Merry Christmas everyone and thank you for reading Strathblane Falconry's blog
The centre is quiet with bookings at this time of year. Everybody is focused on Christmas. Normally I try to use this time of year as a time when i can get out to fly the birds for myself. but the weather this year has made that difficult. There hasn't been that much snow falling in the last week but it has been cold. I think the highest it got to was 1C in the last week and it rained only for the skies to clear and the temperature to drop and everything froze so the place was like an ice rink.
It also takes longer to get things done. To get into the centre we are still de-frosting padlocks. Also working in sub zero temperatures does take it out of you. I wear the correct clothing, I keep moving and I stay warm so it is not a problem until I come home and sit down then I feel exhausted.
How I feel is nothing to what the birds are dealing with. We are not flying that many at the moment. I am down to 1 Eagle Owl - Lobey and 2 male Harris Hawks. There are other birds who are only a couple of ounces away from flying weight and I could have them flying within a couple of days notice but when it is like this I don't want to take any real chances with my birds so everybody is given plenty of food if they are not needed. There is no point having birds sitting at flying weight and them doing nothing or flying just for the sake of flying. Saying that there is no bookings between now and Christmas day so Lobey got a rat to eat and Pele got some rabbit today. So that leaves Oran the other Harris Hawk.
At the beginning of last week I was quite busy with 5 bookings in 3 days. We had a couple of hawk walks over at Cameron House with Pele and Oran. Then there has been nothing for the last 4 days. Until today where we had another Hawk Walk at Cameron House. Oran was on form and flying about looking for things to catch. He was chasing crows and pheasants. He didn't come that close to catching anything as he is not that fit but it was entertaining for the guests to watch and to see him putting in a bit more effort.
I do have a couple of displays coming up over the festive period at Cameron House - Boxing Day and New Years Day with a few bookings in centre so I will be spending this week getting birds ready for that. Slowly bringing weights down so I am not putting the bird under to much pressure with the cold weather. When the weather is like this I don't want reduce the birds food by too much too quickly. You want to be doing it gradually. The last thing you want is for the bird to basically go hypothermic and die on you because you didn't give it enough food so it doesn't have enough energy to keep itself warm in this weather.
The only bird whose weight is being brought down (slowly) is Artemis. I have got her down to 6lb14oz so we are getting close. I will start flying her to the lure again trying to build up her fitness and get her back into a routine. Hopefully it stays dry with no snow so I can try and get her going again.
One more thing Merry Christmas everyone and thank you for reading Strathblane Falconry's blog
Monday, 13 December 2010
A cold week
Well after the snow we had the big freeze. When I opened up on the morning on Tuesday morning it was -12C. It took me a while to get the centre opened up. Something to do with the fact the pad locks were all frozen. It is great fun getting stuck to cold metal as I unlocked the centre. All the birds were ok and the day started like a few other days recently - clearing snow.
The week has been quiet with only 1 booking . Then again it is not really surprising as the weather would put a lot of people off - snow and sub zero temperatures - from going out to fly birds of prey. Not to mention a potential fuel shortage at 1 point in the Glasgow area. It was a bit like the week before for me. Making sure the birds have got plenty of food and cleaning the centre. The most challenging thing was the alarm going off twice in 1 night due to the snow - once at mid night and again at 3am.
The only thing that did worry me was the fact the birds food was running low and I was unable to go and collect more due to the snow. Not helping was the fact that the last half mile of where I need to go and collect the food was along a dirt track in 3inches of snow. My old Volvo estate was not going to make it. Help was at hand though. My friend Brian was driving up from England and he has a 4 wheel drive so he stopped off picked up 10 boxes or 2500 chicks - food shortage over. I have another 3000 chicks being delivered this week. The food shortage is well and truly over.
On Friday there was a bit of a thaw which was great as it cleared a lot of the snow from the centre. I was running out of place to pile it when I was clearing it
On Sunday we did a 1 hour session and it was great to get back to flying birds of prey again. When you run a falconry bird of prey business it is not all standing about and flying birds of prey. Over the last few weeks a lot of time has been spent clearing snow for example. So on Sunday to have a booking was great. The people flew Oran (Male Harris Hawk) and Lobey. Lobey was his usual reliable self. Oran was great also. This was the first time I had used him for a booking in the last 6 months as he had been having a moult. He only flew free on the Friday (2 days before hand) after deciding to jump to the glove in the aviary and allow me to weigh him. On Thursday he was a complete nightmare balling his feet up and refusing to stand on the scales to be weighed and screaming at me. On Friday he was like ok lets do it. Oran can be like that. He can be a bit grumpy refusing to do anything when you bring his weight down to start flying him and then something seems to click and he is brilliant and is always very reliable. None of the other Harris Hawks behave like this. With the rest you can see them getting hungry and more sociable. Not Oran. With him it no chance of doing anything 1 day and then the next day he is perfect. He is doing doing the next 2 bookings tomorrow and Wednesday. The booking on Wednesday is at Cameron House.
Even though it is still freezing and there is some snow on the ground I am trying to get things back to normal to where I was before the snow arrived. This means back to work with Artemis. She is on a diet. As I haven't been flying her over the last 2 weeks I allowed her weight creep up so she is over 7lb and I need to get her back down to 6lb12oz. Hopefully in the next week I will be close to getting her back to where I was before with her. Hopefully we don't have to much more snow to slow things up.
The coming week starts with a few bookings and then goes quiet but there are things needing to be done. I need to make more jesses for the birds. This is the leather straps that are attached to the birds anklets so you can hold on to it. Several of the Harris Hawks need their beaks coped. Becky who is a 3rd year vet student is hopefully coming to help me with this as it will allow her some hands on experience. Also if the snow stays away I am hoping to get out and look at 2 farms that I have asked if it is ok to fly the birds on them. I should hopefully hear if it is ok in the next day or 2. On the whole another steady week snow permitting.
The week has been quiet with only 1 booking . Then again it is not really surprising as the weather would put a lot of people off - snow and sub zero temperatures - from going out to fly birds of prey. Not to mention a potential fuel shortage at 1 point in the Glasgow area. It was a bit like the week before for me. Making sure the birds have got plenty of food and cleaning the centre. The most challenging thing was the alarm going off twice in 1 night due to the snow - once at mid night and again at 3am.
The only thing that did worry me was the fact the birds food was running low and I was unable to go and collect more due to the snow. Not helping was the fact that the last half mile of where I need to go and collect the food was along a dirt track in 3inches of snow. My old Volvo estate was not going to make it. Help was at hand though. My friend Brian was driving up from England and he has a 4 wheel drive so he stopped off picked up 10 boxes or 2500 chicks - food shortage over. I have another 3000 chicks being delivered this week. The food shortage is well and truly over.
On Friday there was a bit of a thaw which was great as it cleared a lot of the snow from the centre. I was running out of place to pile it when I was clearing it
On Sunday we did a 1 hour session and it was great to get back to flying birds of prey again. When you run a falconry bird of prey business it is not all standing about and flying birds of prey. Over the last few weeks a lot of time has been spent clearing snow for example. So on Sunday to have a booking was great. The people flew Oran (Male Harris Hawk) and Lobey. Lobey was his usual reliable self. Oran was great also. This was the first time I had used him for a booking in the last 6 months as he had been having a moult. He only flew free on the Friday (2 days before hand) after deciding to jump to the glove in the aviary and allow me to weigh him. On Thursday he was a complete nightmare balling his feet up and refusing to stand on the scales to be weighed and screaming at me. On Friday he was like ok lets do it. Oran can be like that. He can be a bit grumpy refusing to do anything when you bring his weight down to start flying him and then something seems to click and he is brilliant and is always very reliable. None of the other Harris Hawks behave like this. With the rest you can see them getting hungry and more sociable. Not Oran. With him it no chance of doing anything 1 day and then the next day he is perfect. He is doing doing the next 2 bookings tomorrow and Wednesday. The booking on Wednesday is at Cameron House.
Even though it is still freezing and there is some snow on the ground I am trying to get things back to normal to where I was before the snow arrived. This means back to work with Artemis. She is on a diet. As I haven't been flying her over the last 2 weeks I allowed her weight creep up so she is over 7lb and I need to get her back down to 6lb12oz. Hopefully in the next week I will be close to getting her back to where I was before with her. Hopefully we don't have to much more snow to slow things up.
The coming week starts with a few bookings and then goes quiet but there are things needing to be done. I need to make more jesses for the birds. This is the leather straps that are attached to the birds anklets so you can hold on to it. Several of the Harris Hawks need their beaks coped. Becky who is a 3rd year vet student is hopefully coming to help me with this as it will allow her some hands on experience. Also if the snow stays away I am hoping to get out and look at 2 farms that I have asked if it is ok to fly the birds on them. I should hopefully hear if it is ok in the next day or 2. On the whole another steady week snow permitting.
Monday, 6 December 2010
more snow
Well this week started the same as last week finished - with snow.
In my last post I mentioned how the Monday was spent clearing snow. Well Tuesday started the exact same way - clearing snow. On the Monday it was 7 inches deep on Tuesday it was only 4inches. Not as deep but it still had to be cleared. This week has been a bit uneventful if you forget about the weather. No booking and no birds being flown. We did have bookings but they were cancelled due to the weather.
As I said last week just because there is snow or it is cold it is not an excuse to stop the normal routine. Even though temperatures have been below 0C all week. The warmest it got this week was 0C. It does not mean that the routine can stop.
The good news was that we did get few days that were clear and bright so I could get the birds out front to be fed and let them get a bit of sun on their backs in the areas that I cleared of snow which I am sure they appreciated. The biggest challenge is that everything just takes that bit longer or there are things that you don't normally need to do but they do when it is below freezing - locks may be frozen, ferret water bottles need to be defrosted, waiting for the kettle to boil and breaking ice to get water for cleaning or clearing snow.
As none of the birds are being flown I have taken the weights up of the birds that are flying. Once again while the main food for the birds is day old cockerel chicks, I have been using up alot of other food types - pigeon, quail, rat, duck neck, mice and sausages(beef heart, chicken and duck) . There tends to be more eating in these other foods and most tend to be a lot richer than chicks so the birds get more out of it.
We did have 1 booking go ahead and this was a 1 hour session on the Sunday (yesterday). Pele and Lobey were used and both looked good.
While it has been tough on the birds in the centre with the cold this nothing compared with the what the wild birds are dealing with. On Sunday I got a call to say that a local farmer had found a wild barn owl on the floor of his sheep shed and could I do anything. Myself and Jo went to collect it. The farmer handed over the barn owl in a box saying it was not standing - this is not good. It normally means it is very low and has little or no energy. In other words it is at deaths door. We got it back to the centre. Jo gave it a warm glucose solution to try and boost it's energy levels. We put it in a box and kept it warm and quiet. Unfortunately it died a short time later even though a vet (Jo) started treating it with in 10mins of us picking it up. When we were giving it the glucose solution I could feel its keel (breast bone) very clearly so the bird hadn't been eating that much or nothing at all for a few days. It is always sad but it is natures way. Weather like this makes the margins of survival even tighter for birds of prey in the wild.
Today (Monday) was a complete shambles. When I got up the snow was on and coming down heavily. The roads in Glasgow spent most of the day grid locked. It took me 2 attempts to get to the centre. I gave up on the first attempt when I hit a hill where all the traffic was all stationary. On my second attempt a few hours later I did contemplate walking the 8 miles to the centre but decided against it when I noticed that the traffic was moving. I eventually got out to the centre. I couldn't get up the hotel drive way so I just parked the car at the entrance and walked the last 1/4 mile. The snow is over a foot now in the centre so tomorrow I will be back to clearing snow. 1 thing I will say is - thankfully the snow has been no where as bad as some places where they have had a couple of feet of snow.
In my last post I mentioned how the Monday was spent clearing snow. Well Tuesday started the exact same way - clearing snow. On the Monday it was 7 inches deep on Tuesday it was only 4inches. Not as deep but it still had to be cleared. This week has been a bit uneventful if you forget about the weather. No booking and no birds being flown. We did have bookings but they were cancelled due to the weather.
As I said last week just because there is snow or it is cold it is not an excuse to stop the normal routine. Even though temperatures have been below 0C all week. The warmest it got this week was 0C. It does not mean that the routine can stop.
The good news was that we did get few days that were clear and bright so I could get the birds out front to be fed and let them get a bit of sun on their backs in the areas that I cleared of snow which I am sure they appreciated. The biggest challenge is that everything just takes that bit longer or there are things that you don't normally need to do but they do when it is below freezing - locks may be frozen, ferret water bottles need to be defrosted, waiting for the kettle to boil and breaking ice to get water for cleaning or clearing snow.
As none of the birds are being flown I have taken the weights up of the birds that are flying. Once again while the main food for the birds is day old cockerel chicks, I have been using up alot of other food types - pigeon, quail, rat, duck neck, mice and sausages(beef heart, chicken and duck) . There tends to be more eating in these other foods and most tend to be a lot richer than chicks so the birds get more out of it.
We did have 1 booking go ahead and this was a 1 hour session on the Sunday (yesterday). Pele and Lobey were used and both looked good.
While it has been tough on the birds in the centre with the cold this nothing compared with the what the wild birds are dealing with. On Sunday I got a call to say that a local farmer had found a wild barn owl on the floor of his sheep shed and could I do anything. Myself and Jo went to collect it. The farmer handed over the barn owl in a box saying it was not standing - this is not good. It normally means it is very low and has little or no energy. In other words it is at deaths door. We got it back to the centre. Jo gave it a warm glucose solution to try and boost it's energy levels. We put it in a box and kept it warm and quiet. Unfortunately it died a short time later even though a vet (Jo) started treating it with in 10mins of us picking it up. When we were giving it the glucose solution I could feel its keel (breast bone) very clearly so the bird hadn't been eating that much or nothing at all for a few days. It is always sad but it is natures way. Weather like this makes the margins of survival even tighter for birds of prey in the wild.
Today (Monday) was a complete shambles. When I got up the snow was on and coming down heavily. The roads in Glasgow spent most of the day grid locked. It took me 2 attempts to get to the centre. I gave up on the first attempt when I hit a hill where all the traffic was all stationary. On my second attempt a few hours later I did contemplate walking the 8 miles to the centre but decided against it when I noticed that the traffic was moving. I eventually got out to the centre. I couldn't get up the hotel drive way so I just parked the car at the entrance and walked the last 1/4 mile. The snow is over a foot now in the centre so tomorrow I will be back to clearing snow. 1 thing I will say is - thankfully the snow has been no where as bad as some places where they have had a couple of feet of snow.
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| Path and doorways cleared |
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| The water supply |
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