Well as the title says we have had more rain and then some more rain.
It has been hard at times to work with the birds as the rain just makes it impossible. I am sure it is also impacting on the diary as well as the diary has been a bit quiet. People don't look out the window and see the rain and think lets go and do something outside. At some point the rain has to stop.
Anyway enough moaning about the weather. There is no such thing as bad weather just the wrong clothing.
The birds are all doing ok with the ones who are in moult dropping feather left right and centre. Taz the kestrel is growing in a whole new tail as is Sanda the Lanner Falcon. Alba the Barn Owl is also dropping alot of feathers at the moment.
The birds of the moment are 2 of the Harris Hawks - Pele and Cooper. Pele first. I mentioned in my last post that Pele was back flying and it was case of trying to get him fit now. This has proved to be hard going mainly due to the weather and being unable to get any consistency with him but at last I have been able to get him out and he is looking good. The other 1 is Cooper the new Harris Hawk. He is doing well. I asked him to jump to the glove the other day and he was straight to it and on his first day of flying to the glove he was coming 10m. Needless to say this part of his training moved fast and should of moved faster but last week I didn't have any time to work with him. So he had a week off. This week I knew I had to get things moving with him and that I would be flying him free which I did yesterday. On Monday I just fed him off the glove as he was a bit heavy and grumpy with it. On Tuesday I flew him the creance (long line) and he was coming straight to me from about 15m. I decided that Wednesday would be the day to fly him free. Well Wednesday came and I was going to give him 1 flight on the creance but when I put him on the T perch I could see he was keen and as I walked away he flew after me and landed on the ground next to me so I decided to fly him free. Always a nervous moment the first time you let a bird go free. He flew off and landed in a tree. I called him in and he came straight to the glove without any hesitation. I spent the next 15mins just flying him from perch or tree to the glove. Today I decided to try and get him to follow on a bit. I was just going to get him to fly round the front field but he was flying so well I decided to take him round the hotel grounds which he did. Tomorrow I will take him over to Cameron House and fly him there on the creance as this will be his first time I will of asked him him to fly some where different. Fingers crossed it all goes well
The last few weeks the diary has been steady with the normal booking at the centre and over at Cameron House. There has been no real stand out events. There are 2 though in November that I am looking forward to. At the moment it is just early stages and they haven't been confirmed yet so I don't want to say to much.
The main thing that I have been focused on this week other than Cooper flying free is my Zoo Licence inspection tomorrow. This is something that I need to have done every year on top of the 6 monthly inspection that the vet I use does. The inspection have always gone well and hopefully tomorrow will be the same.
Just a short post this time as I need to go and look out some information and get ready for the inspection tomorrow.
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