Well we survived the festive period and it was a wet and wild one with lots more wind and rain. Unfortunately we had to cancel 1 booking over the festive period but we managed to get everything else done which was no mean feat considering the weather at times. We did get a little bit of luck with the weather and it wasn't to bad when we had bookings to do.
So what has been happening. Well we were busy over the festive period with bookings at the centre and over at Cameron House. I suppose the highlight would of been Cooper our new Harris Hawk doing his first demonstrations on Boxing Day and New Years Day and he was brilliant. He flew well and came into the glove when asked to perfectly. Cooper has been a great addition to the team and I really am looking forward to flying him as no matter what we ask him to do he just gets on with it.
All the other birds that were flown over the festive period flew well also in the various bookings that we had from Hawk Walks, to Family Fun Sessions to Half Day Sessions to the 2 demonstrations that we did. There was no real outstanding moments from the bookings over the festive period. Pele (Harris Hawk) almost caught a rabbit during a hawk walk at Cameron House. We were walking through the woods behind the hotel and he was about 25 feet up in the trees following on when all I saw was him dropping out of the tree and crashing into to some bramble bushes, a rabbit bolted out of the brambles running across the path and into some bushes with Pele jumping up out of the brambles and flying into the bushes after the rabbit where he lost it. Good effort on his part though.
Talking of hunting I haven't been out at all since my last post the weather has just made it impossible when things have been quiet. More often than not it has been raining and very windy. This year so far has been rubbish. I think once we got the 1st January out the way all it has done is rained so far this year. We have had more storms last week which were stronger than what we had at the beginning of December with a few trees coming down in the grounds of the hotel where we are based. We had 2 snap in half behind the centre but thankfully the fell away from the centre
While the 2 trees that snapped in half behind the centre weren't that large there was a large tree that did come down in the garden of 1 of the houses that is in the grounds of the hotel
Thankfully the centre and the birds came through it all unscathed. The birds though were a bit jumpy after the last storm. I think they had had a bit of a rough night with the high winds as some were a bit jumpy when I went to put them out on the front lawn to be fed in the morning.
While I said I haven't been out hunting so far this season with 1of my birds I did take a day off last Saturday and visit a friend to watch his Peregrine and Gyr x Peregrine hi-brid hunt duck. It was very windy and both birds didn't go as high as they normally would due to the strong wind, the Peregrine did manage about 500ft and the Gyr x Peregrine did about 800 feet. No ducks were caught but both birds put in good flights and were unlucky but it was a great day out seeing a different style of flying that I don't do. It's awesome just to see falcons coming down from a good height up in a stoop. You hear the whoosh of them cutting through the air at high speed chasing after a duck.
Life in the centre has been quiet with short days at the moment and not alot of bookings. The days have consisted of open up the centre put some birds out front to feed (if the weather is not too bad), clean, feed the rest of the birds, walk the dogs and then lock up and go home. The weather has really limited what we can do in the centre. I suspect the birds won't care as it has been easy for them. The next couple of days are meant to be ok so hopefully I can get out on 1 day as I have a few bookings this weekend. Fingers crossed.
I did go and get get more bird food the other day. Quite a simple order this time - 26 boxes of chicks, 1 box of quail (40 quail to a box) and 1kg of mice. I am not even sure if I needed the quail as I still have a few cockerels left that were given to me last month for bird food. I suppose the quail will get used up eventually. Talking of the cockerels, they have been great eating for the birds. I can feed about 8 or 9 birds with 1 cockerel. I should be getting some more later this year. I didn't get any rat or duck neck this time as I still have a load of squirrel to use up plus the cockerels. As I said in my last entry on my blog - all the birds are eating well at the moment.
alot more good times.
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