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