Iris, American Kestrel, on the lure.

We've had some truly lovely weather here over the last few weeks and that has meant that we have had some very nice flying from some of the birds. Herriot the Steppe Eagle is the one the stands out for me, mostly because of the superb effort he puts in every day regardless of which way the wind is blowing - something I've not encountered with eagles before. Today he made a little height during the 2:30pm demo which was superb. I keep hoping that someone gets a good video of him when he does this but so far I've not been sent one!

A lovely card from a Primary School who visited last week.

It's been a bit of a mixed couple of weeks for us as we've had our fair share of tough days. Rowan, the young Barbary Falcon had his first flight free last week. He came to the lure well but then spooked upon almost landing in the grass and from then on was on the wing with Stuart and I close on his tail with the tracking equipment. Over two days we covered over 250 miles in Stuart's Jimny (without which I wouldn't have been able to track him at all) and eventually we lost his signal on Friday afternoon. Try as we might we could not get a beep and from then on I have been really hoping to hear the phone ring with news that someone had picked him up - no such luck! It's a real shame as he was really showing signs of being a lovely bird to handle and, if any of his older brothers were anything to go by, he would have been an awesome bird to see fly. After a few days of being up at first light and being out until dark we were all exhausted. Stuart and Emma have been wonderfully patient with me and have both been constantly on hand to help me find him - as have Peter and Iona. Knowing that you have good, trustworthy backup when these things happen is invaluable. We're still keeping our ears open and eyes peeled for any news.

Emma with Elder
after he'd been collected from the top of the tree

On Tuesday I decided that Elder, one of the young Barn Owls (the one that ended up at the top of the tree) would be safe to fly again after a little manning time in the aviary - wrong! After a few nice flights to the fist he spooked and flew up into a tree. Emma and I exchanged looks at this moment thinking - "not again!" Luckily he hadn't flown far and, with the help of Dawn, our fantastic new volunteer (especially so as she brought us the best millionaires shortbread last week), I managed to climb up and retrieve him. After losing the Barbary the previous week I was not looking forward to spending days on end looking for a young Barn Owl.It's likely the local Tawny Owl population would have had something to say about it too. He's now back safe and sound with his brother. We're going to have a rethink on how we train them as the current methods aren't good!

MightyMite helping with the gardening

The new undercover weathering has come on apace and its looking really very nice now. Annie, the head gardener at Muncaster, has been planting up some herbaceous beds infront of the birds which will look stunning when they flower as well as being a great help in attracting bees and butterflies. The birds are really settled and happy in there and it gives us somewhere to weather the birds on hot and wet days. It just needs painting up - a thankless task that will take rather a long time alongside the pruning of the ever growing foliage across the centre that's been growing incredibly fast recently.I had a go at pruning and I don't think its my life calling - hacking would best describe what I did but it wont need doing for a while now.







I'm making the trip down to HCT later next week to collect another new addition to the Muncaster team. This one will come into his/her own during the long winter months here at the castle - any guesses what it might be? Check back here in a week or so to find out.