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