At last I was able to pick up the new Barn Owl who was only 25 days old. I am glad I have finally got it. I always feel happier if I imprint an owl that I need to train or work with.
When I talk about imprint - I mean hand rear. If you wan to work with owls - fly them - then you need to hand rear them so basically they grow up looking on you as the parent and the food source. You do not want to be handling an owl that is parent reared and it grows up knowing it is an owl - nasty.
While I had full confidence in the breeder I would still rather do it myself then I know what I am getting. We haven't named it yet as I have no idea if it is a male or a female. What they say is if it has a white tail it is a mail and if it has bars across it's tail then it is female. At the moment it has no tail so we will wait and see.
Since I last posted a blog things have been busy with 11 bookings in 6 days. 6 of the bookings were at then centre, 4 at Cameron House and 1 in Edinburgh. On the whole the birds flew well. Mardy (Harris Hawk) did another hawk walk at Cameron House and was perfect. I was really watching him to keep an eye on him just in case he went off on 1 but he was perfect. He was flying in his usual style up high in the trees keeping a good height so he could try and see everything or anything that moved. This time there wasn't too much moving about but he did have a go at something in woods behind the hotel again. Once again I am not sure what as I couldn't see but certainly Mardy thought it was worth a shot at.
Pele (Harris Hawk) has been continuing his erratic form at Cameron House. At the centre where we are based he is perfect. He flies well at Cameron House in the fact that he will come straight to the glove putting in long sweeping flights across the front lawn but he can be a real pain to follow on. On Thursday I had a last minute booking for a hawk walk at Cameron House so I decided to take the more relaxing option - Pele - over the 1 where I need eyes on the back of my head - Mardy - as I was meeting with friends in the afternoon to go fishing and I thought I would make it easy for myself. Pele was good in the fact that he was once again coming straight to the glove but a bit slow to follow on or in some cases not following on. I know he is hungry enough in the fact that when the client puts up their glove he is always very quick to come to the glove - no hesitation. He is however still very reliable and caused no real problems. On Saturday though I decided to change things with him when he was showing signs that he wasn't going to follow on well. I decided to go straight into the woods at the back of Cameron House and he was perfect following on through the trees being quick and responsive. I suspect the problem was he was bored and knew there was no chance of him catching anything on the front lawn, so I suspect he was thinking why bother. Hopefully with the new routine things will be back to normal.
Today's event in Edinburgh was mostly straight forward. Artemis (Steppe Eagle) wouldn't settle due to all the children running about at it as it was a 50th birthday garden party so there was a lot of kids running about. Artemis is not a big fan of children, because of her weight she has no real contact or interaction with children as she is too heavy for them to hold. The other thing is children tend to be a bit random in the way they behave and move which unsettles her. Children move quickly and suddenly. We were asked to provide a static demonstration where people could come up and look at the bird and we allowed some people hold the birds and answer any questions that people had. As always we don't allow anyone to touch or stroke the birds. We also had to provide a flying demonstration as well. I decided to make the demonstration very hands on as it was a small group and there were loads of kids. First up was Alba (Barn Owl) who was great even though the wind was quite strong. She was looking good and was her usual reliable self. Next up was Corrie. I had just put him on the T-perch and I was walking away to call him when a large black dog appeared from no where and spooked him he stood looked at it for a second and as I reached to grab his jesses he took off round the house. The only thing I could do was go and look for him. This wasn't a big deal as I always fly my birds with telemetry on them at events. It doesn't make any difference if it is an owl, falcon or hawk they all wear a transmitter. It is just good management. Off I went with the receiver following the signal. He was actually really easy to find as he had only gone about 150m and was sitting on the ground. So it was just a case of picking him up and heading back to where the demonstration was being held. I decided not to try and get Corrie to fly again. I got Brel Always good to get positive feed back.
The coming week is quiet until the weekend. This weekend I have a large corporate event at Hopeton House so it is back through to Edinburgh for the 3rd week running. I am looking forward to this event. I have done events before at Hopeton house but this will be the first one where they have booked me direct. Before it has always been through event companies. The pressure will be on but it is always on when you do a corporate event. The standards are high. The client is not really interested in what you can't do. They are interested in what you are going to do. The other thing is they have an expectation as to what they expect and the very least I can do is equal that - that is the minimum requirement. That means 100%. The thing is if that is the standard you set on your first event with an event company then that is the standard that you have to maintain. I have always said that if an event company decide to use me to provide falconry services then the easy part was getting the work - the most difficult part in holding on to it as there is always someone waiting in the wings to take your place and once it is gone it is almost impossible to get back in. I always look forward to the corporate work. I like the change in environment, with some of the place I get to fly the birds being stunning. Hopeton House falls into that category.
Hopefully it all goes well.
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