Summer schedule upon us.

Busy busy times. Birds with eggs, eggs in incubators, eggs hatching, chicks needing fed and putting back with Mum and Dad, other chicks with Mum and Dad! Chicks demanding food every 2 hours. All great news for the breeding season with young breeding pairs coming on line for the first time. Older reliable ones doing their thing, but others have us scratching our heads because of inexplicable infertility. Breeding for the small time breeder is exciting but a headache.

All that is happening with our pest control season well under way. It’d great starting new contracts, and also seeing the fruits of our labour at older more established control sites. The business here is settling in to a comfortable place, but with no complacency setting in. We have a great team around us, and indeed we’re invigorated by the enthusiasm of our latest full time recruit, Robin Manson who has brought new vitality and some personal direction, motivation and ambition to our company and plans.

Indeed robin had a great day out in Stonehaven at Dunnotter Castle this week supplying some falcons for a photo’ shoot with a US jewellery company called Maevona. I think he just may have been concentrating too much on the bird in the glove, not the one on it!!!!!!!!

We also got started at The Falkirk Wheel at the Easter Weekend. We had tremendous weather and great crowds. We worked some out of Demo’ experiments with some new birds there too which went fairly well. Looking good for the future! We launched a new product at the wheel too. Between flying demonstrations we now put on a 30 minute session just for children. They come into the weathering area with us and all get to fly one of the owls. It was a huge success at Easter so we’ll be continuing that during all of our dates there.

I’ll try to get some pictures of our baby Faldeggi Lanner Falcon chick for you today. It’s just 2 days old, and goes back to Mum tomorrow (Sunday). We had to pull the lanner eggs because Dad wasn’t covering when Mum took a break from brooding. We’ve left her with dummy eggs, and just recently, I did see Dad helping incubate right at the end of the incubation period. With luck, that’s a good sign for them accepting the chick back for natural rearing in seclusion.

Anyway, that’s all for now – oh, except you can now see more of what we’re up to on our new Facebook page. It’s called Elite Falconry so please drop in and have a look. That’s another new project having been instigated and created by Robin – cheers bloke!

More soon, and thanks for looking in.

Short wait

That didn’t leave long to wait! The first swallows at the centre were seen today! A welcome, if messy return. Busy day today so no time to write much, excpet that in this wind the eagles and falcons have been amazing!

Thanks for looking in.

Summer on the Horizon?

Well, the forecast says good weather is coming. That sounds good for thermalling the small eagles, but so far my confidence has NOT been boosted by the arrival of swallows. We keep hoping to see the first ones whiz in the barn and start making noise, but nothing yet. However, we did see the unusual sight of a group of Martins arriving on migration as a big flock at the weekend. We don’t normally see them until after the swallows, but hey, we don’t make the migration rules!

We have now got a good number of falcon eggs from several species but for some reason, although we know there has been copulation because the eggs are fertile, the males are not joining in with incubation when the females step off the eggs. So we’ve pulled them and have them in the incubators. I pulled the eggs early so didn’t know until later if they were fertile, so opted to leave the pairs without dummy eggs, and they are already showing signs of recycling. If we get 2nd fertile clutches, we have a contingency in place to put the 2nd clutches with foster parents for parent rearing.

We also have Harris hawks with eggs, the first clutch of which are due to start hatching in a week.

On the slightly less cheery side, my poor old Hungarian Vizsla, Jodie had to be put to sleep on Monday she was 14. Last Friday, she was still bouncing around, happy and healthy, running 3 miles a day with the other dogs. She had come into season for the first time in 2 years and it was heavy and bothering her, but after a conversation with the vet, was seen as no cause for concern. However, Friday evening, on her run she started to limp a little. But she was still happy, and eating normally. We put her on Metacam to reduce any swelling in her suspect shoulder and to kill the pain a little. Saturday morning she was very unwilling to walk. She would limp around the garden, but was clearly a little unhappy. Saturday night she wouldn’t get up unless lifted and while drinking normally, she wouldn’t eat. Sunday morning she was a bit brighter, tail wagging and pleased to get some treats, but still wouldn’t eat her dinner. We conned her with some venison and trout, but not very much. Sunday evening and she still had to be lifted outside, and once she’d had a wee, she wouldn’t move. Had to be lifted back indoors. Monday morning was the same. Throughout all this she seemed painless when laying down, but totally unwilling to get up or move at all.  A trip to the vet ended with the expected result. Her shoulder had totally failed. No injury, just completely knackered. She has been hypothyroxic for 2 years and had a great, active trouble free life. The vet says there was nothing to do beyond stealing a few extra weeks using drugs to manage the pain and swelling in the wrecked shoulder. That would have been the wrong decision for her and us, so in total agreement with the vet, she was put to sleep. She rests now side by side with Mac, her old running mate who she has missed this past few years. RIP.

Where there is livestock, there is dead stock, and new life is always around the corner. The ferrets are all bursting with kitts! I didn’t want any baby ferrets this year, but someone wanted a whole litter from me so we decided to breed one jill, and let the other be mated by the vasectomised hob. Despite our vigilance, the intact hob got there first and they’re all pregnant!!!!!!!!

It’s a shame our Golden Eagles aren’t as compatible as the ferrets. Relations in that aviary are better, but this year is a write off as far as breeding is concerned!

We’re exploring things to build our next block of aviaries now. We plan another 8 aviaries built off the side of the eagle aviary. One large for another very very special pair of eagles we have coming, and the remainder for falcons. These are plans that have been simmering for a long long time, but the work put in by everyone and the support of others means these dreamed of ideas may become a reality over the next few years. The aviaries will be built in phases but at least we’ll see them actually becoming a reality. It will be nice for the 36 year old Golden Eagle we have here who was stolen from the wild as she had just become adult in 1979, to have a purpose built aviary too. She has specific needs and it’ll be great to see her get them provided!

Final news for now, we also have been requested to build a quarantine facility to BALAI Directive standards. This will stand to allow us to serve as a facility to provide for birds moved throughout the world for conservation work. We should see some vulnerable species come through and become established as breeding pairs to improve their overall conservation status. We really do live in interesting times. It’s been a long hard game, but finally we see the conservation fruits of our labour. The new station will be sponsored by a couple of organisations, without whom it could never happen, so to them, we offer our unconditional gratitude!

That’s it for now. I’m back out to look for signs of the promised sun, and maybe a swallow!

Thanks for looking in.