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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