The blog is moving!

Hello everyone - Just a heads up that the Muncaster website has been updated. So much so that the blog is being taken 'in house' as it were and will no longer be posted on blogger. Please follow the following link to keep up to date with all the going's on a Muncaster including my contribution from the Hawk and Owl Centre. http://www.muncaster.co.uk/news/

Diego - Credit Ian Taylor

It's been a busy few weeks at Muncaster. The new flying arena is working as well as expected - it's so much easier for falconers and birds alike to fly just next door for the 11.30am display. We've only had one poor soul sat in the wrong place for the duration of the first display as they visited last year and must have missed the signs and advice from staff on where to go and so she sat up in the meadow. For half an hour. On her own!
Luckily she was fairly local so I'm sure she'll be back to see it over the summer anyway.



Unfortunately I've had to stop flying Diego as she's taken a dislike (I don't blame her if I'm honest).
The dislike has got to the extent that she likes to bite me, hard, in the back of the head at any opportunity. It's not a pretty site if a little funny for Stuart and Emma.
Herriot has been very hit and miss in the displays and it's very weather dependant. Yesterday he flew beautifully over the trees and into the valley and he was actually circling up on a thermal - closely watched by the local Buzzards, Ravens and Crows. To have any bird flying like that is just a stunning sight and when it's an eagle its somehow even more special. He's always one of my favourites to watch fly.

Herriot with Stuart after another awesome display.
Credit - Michael Edwards

The Donkey Shed has been totally transformed now. Those who visited last year will have seen the old structure we found when we cleared some of the trees at the top of the meadow. It was a bit of an eyesore in such a beautiful place to say the least. Now though, Stan and the team have been working hard to get it looking smarter - and what a fantastic job they've done. It's all clad in timber and even has stable doors and the all important roof to keep everything dry. Walrus has been sorting the electric out up there too which means the Donkey Shed has power and light and the PA can run on mains power. We've had a couple of experiences of it giving up the ghost halfway through a display. The meadow is becoming more and more a central part of the gardens and it's hoped that the Donkey Shed should be able to be used to sell drinks, snacks and adoptions packages from in the very near future. Who knows - maybe even the odd Ice Cream on the warm days.

Baz is going home - Credit Ian Taylor

As a team we took the decision to drop Baz from the team altogether this week. Last year he had an injury to his leg which hasn't helped but it's fair to say that since he's been here he hasn't settled in. This means he has no real role or job with us here which means he's getting bored and frustrated with us. He's my own bird so I always wanted to see the best in him and sometimes it takes other people to remind you that things are not going to plan. I had thought for a while that finding him another home might have to be an option but after speaking to Stuart and Emma this week we all agreed that I should make arrangements for that more quickly.

My good friend and Jedi (Mentor) Mike from Icarus Falconry in Northamptonshire has kindly agreed to have him back, at least for the foreseeable future. Baz was originally bred there and one of Mike's volunteers was particularly fond of him so I hope they can maybe bring him round to being a nice bird to work with. Some birds just don't settle well into an open centre like Muncaster and Baz is clearly one of them. It'll be sad for me to see him move on but it is the best for the bird.

Peter and I have been conducting interviews this week for our Seasonal Falconer role and all I can say at this stage is that I think they have been successful and we've been delighted to meet people whop are clearly passionate about wanting to work here and with our bird. Update to follow.

Result!

Well now we're fully open and have been for the last week or so. It's been such a busy time for everyone here but its great to be back in the swing of flying birds for visitors again. The Easter weekend has been and gone with varying success on numbers but those who did come along were lovely with one group of people braving awful weather for our morning 'World of Owls' display in the Old Rose Garden and had a lovely time by all accounts. Those are the visitors I enjoy working with the most I think; people who come for a good day out and don't let anything stop that so they suit up in thermals and waterproofs and are ready for anything and smile about it! The World of Owls has been really well received in its new location - we're just about getting used to the new routine of flying in there now and it really gives visitors the chance to see birds flying very close. What's more is that we've managed to get Diego, the Kookaburra fishing from our extensive Australian lake! Peter managed to snap a shot of her doing it too - would be nice to get a really good shot of this before the end of the season but Stuart's face in this one is classic so the resolution doesn't bother me so much.

We also had another visit from Ashley Smith from HCT who helped us with a few more of the exciting plans we've got for the coming season and beyond. It's a reminder that we're still a work in progress and that to be where we are now at such an early stage in our development is fantastic. Something we're looking to expand further at the centre is our on-site conservation efforts. This is an area in which Emma is particularly interested in getting involved so some time with the conservation team at the Hawk Conservancy might be an option to give her the extra support she needs to progress. This visit we also had the chance to spend more time with Ash as a team. This meant that we managed to imp (fix broken feathers) Herriot's tail feathers and soak up as much wisdom from our 'Jedi' as we could before he left.

Herriot and the rest of the Sky Hunters team are also back in full swing at the slightly earlier time of 2pm this year. Operationally this has made the day much more manageable for us and gives us a 'golden hour' between 3pm and 4pm when we can give people the chance to fly a Harris' Hawk through the woodlands here and, perhaps when they're in full bloom' through the bluebells. Doesn't get much better than that! Having said Herriot is back on the team, it's been a little hard to predict what he's going to do in demos day to day. Sunday for example he soared high above the castle, disappeared for a few moments before pulling the most jaw-dropping stoop over the trees and into the arena (to spontaneous applause I might add from large crowds of people). On the other hand, when I flew him yesterday, his display went like this - Take off, land in a tree, the branch snaps, he falls into the long grass, gets up, lands on the main castle lawn, sits and has a rest before flying so low through the woodland he nearly took a lady and her two children out in the process. In fact they ducked for cover when I shouted at them! Hopefully he'll get more consistent
as his fitness (and the weather) improves.

More exciting news is that we're currently on the hunt for another member of bird staff at the moment. We've been a three person team for almost a year now so another member of staff would help us enormously with the additional work we plan to do and make the demos much slicker. We've had a few applicants but there's still time to get a CV into us if you or anyone you know are the special sort of person we look for in a member of bird staff. More info here - http://www.muncaster.co.uk/files/documents/seasonal_falconer_advert_18_3_16.pdf

The Kites are back!

We open in less than a week's time! It's really very exciting after a long wet and cold winter to be finally within touching distance of the main season. We've also been really lucky with the weather recently - I've had a few days that Ive been wishing I hadn't opted for wellies. A lot has been happening - we had a visit from Ash and Penny from HCT which was very helpful. It was really good to see the look of pleasant surprise on Ash's face particularly when he saw the changes we've made to the Old Rose Garden, which by the way is very nearly almost finished and looks lovely. Once summer comes around and everything starts to leaf up a bit it'll look even better. We've started flying in that area now to get the owls used to it and their doing brilliantly. 

Our new freezer unit arrived this week which sounds like a really boring thing to say but when our food has been stored in 3 or 4 emergency freezers around the site it means we really appreciate having it all in one place! The old one gave up the ghost at the back end of last year and had really seen better days. The new one is al digital and high tech. We're very lucky. On that point we'll be having an enormous food delivery this week which should last us the season so the new unit arrived just in time! The roof on our weighing room and equipment shed is being replaced this week too so long as the weather holds. With all the rain the quick fix which was applied last September really isn't up to the job so hopefully this attempt will last a little longer. 

 

Peter flies Diego

All the birds who fly on the meadow are flying well too. Nutmeg even made an attempt to thermal yesterday and ended up being in the air for 25 minutes or so only to come back over at tree height. We're going to make a conscious effort to only fly him in displays when the weather is right for him. Last year when it wasn't he got in a habit of sitting in trees - not exactly dynamic and exciting to watch for any of us. Herriot will need to undergo some heavy imping (mending his feathers by using old mounted ones) as he's looking a bit rough. This eagle does not appear to have moulted anything but a few head feathers since he was a baby.  He is however training up well again and I'm hoping to get him flying free this week. There's going to be a really stark difference between the two displays this year and the most obvious is the amount of space the Falcons, vultures, kites and eagles use by comparison to the Owls we fly in the morning. 

The screen to protect the birds goes up

 

Before we know it we'll be in the midst of the main season again with more audience than we know what to do with. The sun is shining for now and the dog is enjoying it as I write this which makes life here that bit sweeter. 

 

Linford, Burrowing Owl.
There are few things sweeter

Well Spring is most definitely in the air now and that means that the centre is starting to regain some normality and routine. Birds are starting to be retrained ready for the main season (starting 20th March) and staff have just about had all the holiday their going to see until next year. I had a wonderful time away last week in Iceland seeing the Northern Lights, which was on my bucket list, and soaking in the Blue Lagoon but it's good to be back with the birds and back to preparing for demonstrations again. I have to say it's also a bonus for us bird staff having the tea room open again - somewhere warm that has tea and cake has got to be a winner hasn't it?

The diggers out in force

We've been fielding enquiries for new volunteers this week too - three individuals have contacted us, one of whom has just been to see Peter and I for a visit and hopefully we can but them to work very soon - there's rather a lot of staining to do before the summer opening as the rain (would you believe it?) has washed rather a lot of it away. We wouldn't mind some help shifting the huge pile of fresh chippings that are to be in the seating area of the Old Rose Garden.





This is where our new 'World of Owls' flying demonstration is going to be when we start flying again and it's taken a great deal of work to get it where it is now but, as ever, there's still lot's to do before it's ready. The lads here at Muncaster have played a massive part in preparing this area so a great deal of the credit for how the area ends up looking goes to them. I'm hoping we can get the space more or less there about 5 days before opening to give Emma, Stuart and I the chance to try the birds there before we need to show anyone.

Emma with ASBO

The joy of working with a well established flying team is the speed at which they get back on the ball after a break. Just a day or two into training and ASBO, Nutmeg, Conan and Iris are practuically ready to fly free. Actually ASBO has now flown free - he's doing about half a dozen passes to the lure at the moment and that will increase as he builds fitness. This wont take long. The owls will take a little longer I think - we're still waiting on Whippet to moult his tail feathers and, to be honest, I don't hold out much hope for him being ready for the start of the flying season but we'll see. Herriot is in a similar boat and looks more than a tad messy. We don't like to fly birds with feathers broken, on the odd occasion its unavoidable but in this case we'll just have to be patient and wait for them to drop and regrow. We're also expecting to have William, Foxpitt and Bandele, the Yellow Billed Kites, back with us from the 7th March when Penny and Ash visit from the Hawk Conservancy. This will be a good chance for us all to catch up and prepare ourselves for what we hope will be a successful season in 2016. Plus HCT are like an extension of the family for us working with the birds so it'll be nice to see another couple of friendly faces!

Who could these tunnels be for?

New flyers are well and truly out there now. This year the marketing team have given the centre a whole side of the leaflet meaning that it looks almost like a stand-alone attraction. The hope is that people who have an interest in wildlife and specifically birds of prey will spot the flyer on the stand - then again lots of our interest is generated through the website now and I'm told that the Hawk and Owl Centre page is now the 3rd most visited on the site. With improvements to the whole site still to come we should hopefully reach even more people who will in turn want to come and support us. Perhaps that will be you! See you soon....

The gorgeous Delilah

There's not a great deal to say at the moment which is why I've been keeping so quiet over the last month. All of the birds have been fattened up for the winter as you know with the exception of Baz our male Harris' Hawk who damaged his leg in the middle of the summer season last year. With the operation and stitch up a success it took all of 3 months for his leg to heal properly. We got him out of the aviary about two weeks ago and have started training him again.


He's a funny bird, bred from a hunting female I was lucky enough to work with back home in Northamptonshire and a male who had worked on experiences there for 12 years or so. I had always expected their youngster to be very laid back and easy going - Baz is far from easy to work with as far as Harris' go. I do hope he'll settle a bit better when we get him flying as he should be working on our 'Hawk Walks' later in the year - follow the link for more deatils http://www.muncaster.co.uk/gifts-experiences/hawk-walks. Izzy, Our other Harris' (now at a ripe old age of 20!) really doesn't like him and gives him the evil eye at any opportunity.

We had a visit from avian vet John Chitty (BVetMed, CertZooMed, CBiol, MSB, MRCVS (and probably more letters too!) just yesterday. John works very closely with HCT and so takes overall responsibility for most of the veterinary care their birds need. We work with Browne and McKinney Vets who are colleges of Peter's and so their working relationship is already good and their wonderful people who have been brilliant with handling some difficult avian cases over the last season whilst liaising with John.The meeting meant that everyone could put a name and voice to a face and so we could put together more structured procedure for when we have birds that are unwell (it was a lot more interesting than it sounds). I have to say that there were moments I felt a little lost in a room with me and four vets - I'm sure they have their own language. In any case the visit was very positive and we got a lot from it. We've got lots of paperwork to do to make sure we're all on the same page and that we're working to the highest possible standards.

We're still continuing work in the 'Old Rose Garden' which used to be the main section of the old Owl Centre. Practically every structure was removed before Christmas and now we're beginning to shape the area up for it's new purpose (which we'll reveal at the start of the season on March 10th). So until then we'll be digging, shoveling, planting, strimming, pruning, 'making-good', planting and shifting breeze blocks which should keep us busy at least until we start to train birds up again which will probably be towards the end of February.

No prizes for guessing which one's me...

I've been working with Gosforth Amateur Dramatics Society too over the winter doing Panto - It's really good fun. Opening night was last night and we had vast numbers of Brownies and Cub Scouts in which was brilliant as they love it more than anyone. I'm setting up a Youth Theatre with them too in my spare time (??!!) which I'm really looking forward too and I'm hoping to get them involved with some of the events here at Muncaster. I think they call that community cohesion... or something!