A good day

I feel I should start with what happened today. Today was 1 of those days where I walked out of the centre at he end of the day and felt like I had a good day. There was no bookings to be done. I did a little bit of work with Artemis who was rubbish. The good news was that the e mails were mainly enquiries. I may be fully booked for Easter. I had an e mail from a company asking me to do 3 demonstrations over the Easter weekend. I also booked in a corporate event in July for a group of Americans. Both pieces of work were repeat bookings for companies I have done work for in the past which made it even better. I also picked up a booking for Cameron House this Thursday so a very good day.

The last week has been a good week on the whole for bookings with bookings on every day apart from today. It has been a good mixture of bookings with a few half day sessions, a school visit, a couple of bookings over at Cameron House and then there was Saturday. On Saturday we had out first vet student sessions. This is where we had 32 vet students out at the centre in 2 groups.

The idea was to create a session to let the students see a selection of birds of prey that they were most likely to see when they qualify so they know the difference between a Harris Hawk and a Redtail and a Barn owl and a European Eagle Owl. To show them the best way to cast up a bird (to secure it for examination), to show them some basic first aid (crop tubing), talk a little on husbandry and let them fly a bird. It was quite intense and I know I was feeling exhausted after the first group and then it was time to get ready for the second group. While it felt quite intense it was great fun with 2 students asking to come out and do EMS placements after their exams which is great. At the end of Saurday afternoon I felt exhausted.

I need to say a big thank you to my friend Charlie who lent me his Redtailed Buzzard called Ramsay for it so the students could see what a Red Tailed Buzzard looked like

Ramsay the Redtailed Buzzard

You can see why they are called Redtails

We had some the birds sitting out front for the students to look at.

The sessions then finished with the students flying a bird or practising crop tubing on some dead pigeons.

Hopefully the students felt it was a worth while experience and there have been a few enquiries about doing another 1. We have only been able to do these sessions because of Jo. Having someone there who is a qualified vet means that I am lucky enough to have someone who is more than qualified to demonstrate the first aid for birds of prey. So a BIG THANK YOU Jo.

The coming week has filled up with bookings on 6 days out of 7 with almost an even split between the centre and Cameron House. So a busy week ahead. In between all these bookings I will hopefully start flying Sanda (Lanner Falcon) and Uist (Lugger Falcon) to the lure to start getting them ready for the first big display of the season - Glasgow Vet School Rodeo in mid April. Sanda is almost at flying weight and Uist is right behind her. Uist will probably start next week. Sanda though should start tomorrow with verticals (jumping up to the glove to build up her muscles). Sanda is 1 the originals. She is the first big falcon I ever trained. I have had her 9 years. With the days getting longer I have a bit more time to work with the birds, which I suspect I am going to need. Not that it takes much to get Sanda and Uist going again. Take their weight down to flying weight and show them the lure and away they go. All I need to do is fly them so they get fit.

In between getting Sanda and Uist going and dealing with all the bookings I will also need to get Mardy and Brel flying as well. Brel being the priority as I use him in demonstrations and corporate work mainly. Saying that it is going to take another week or 2 to get him close to flying weight but I can already see that he is becoming a little bit more sociable as we get closer to his flying weight.

Busy times ahead and I haven't even started  the display season.

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