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!

The team have moved on apace again with the deconstruction of the 'other' area beyond the current centre walls. Most of the old aviaries have been collapsed and we're starting to get a real feel of how we are going to use this area to its full potential. It's amazing how much having a blank canvass can change your perception of a space. It's so much more open now and there is so much space for us to use.

Lila took a bit of a fall yesterday - after jumping up to catch a stick she fell on her right shoulder and gave a loud yelp and started limping. She's the nuttiest dog so she usually shakes off a scrape here or there. This time however she's not come off so well as, when I went to check on her later in the day, she could bare no weight at all on her right leg. Straight to the vets we went who seemed to think there were no breaks but that it was unsure if she could have a fracture.  After some anti-inflammatory and some pain medication she seems much brighter this morning and is baring at least some of her weight on the leg. The trials our animals put us through!


We're all organised for Christmas now and its good to know that we're all going to get a chance to have a break - including the birds. From 23rd December until mid-March we will not be flying so it means we can get a lot of the work we need doing before we open again next year. That said, it's been easier to get a few of those things done even this month as we have not seen very many visitors at the flying displays but we are ever grateful to those who do attend. Visitors who have seen the flying displays have had extra special treatment and have been flying some of the birds with us. The news coverage of the floods across Cumbria has been 'bad for business' to say the least even though we have been barely seen any flooding in our area. And it's still raining as I look outside the office!









I've also been working with Andy and Denise to create a new leaflet for the new year. It's looking very colourful and gives us our first chance to market the Hawk and Owl Centre alongside the Castle. We couldn't do this last year as we started our season in May - too late to tell the world too much before we had to be flying birds.

Thank you very much to all of you who follow this blog and have supported the Hawk and Owl Centre in our first year. We all wish you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2016 (which hopefully will include a trip to see us at the centre!).

You've got to love TripAdvisor. It's a brilliant way to gather as many peoples opinions on a place or activity and can be a real help to businesses to adapt. Trouble is it opens you up to all sorts. Muncaster is just next door to Ravenglass where there is a ruin of a Roman Bathhouse - there's a TripAdvisor page for this and despite the incredible fact that it's still standing (with many Walls intact) after nearly 2000 years people still write on the website that it's "just a few walls". I imagine they'd say the same about the Coliseum or after a visit to Pompeii! Mostly visitors have been very kind about the change this year at Muncaster and the displays have been especially well received. We've had countless messages and accolades on social media raving about them. Some don't agree but I have firmly believed throughout the season that the displays and the birds in them have very rightly made us very proud at Muncaster. I certainly wouldn't do them if I thought they weren't to the highest possible standard. What we have produced this year is going to be better next year and better again the year after that. To anyone who hasn't been very pleased with our displays this year I apologise but I think they've been excellent. After all this was our first season and Rome wasn't built in a day. Then again, Rome was 'just a few walls'. 

We have been busy making alterations to the covered area for the tethered birds in the centre. The ground was getting very waterlogged under there and so we've put a membrane and 6 tonnes of gravel down which should do the trick! The birds can now sit out in all weathers (practically) without getting wet heads, feathers or feet. The rest of the team here at Muncaster have also been an absolute godsend over the last week or so as they have been helping us deconstruct some of the old aviaries 'next door'.  This year we've only been using what was called the Owl Garden but we hope to expand into the other large area of the centre when we re-open in the spring. Lots of exciting times ahead as we build up to that opening but a heck of a lot of work to do to it first. 

The Wildlife Pond has also moved on a pace and is now recognisably a public area. Until a couple of weeks ago it was very overgrown and very 'wild'. Emma has been working with the garden staff to create new habitats for wildlife and a renewed area for visitors to enjoy come next spring. This was one of the projects we discussed on the Friends of Muncaster evening in September so it's good to see us being true to our word. 

The hardy birds are still flying and doing a Stirling job in some harsh conditions. As I type this I'm not sure that I won't get blown away today let alone the birds! They'll be flying at 1:30pm everyday until 23rd December, weather permitting.  We had out first cancelled show this week due to high winds. Trees were coming down in the woods so I think we made the right call. A couple staying in Ravenglass had come specifically to see us fly so they still got a close up look at some of the birds and a 'VIP tour'. 

Well the weather has certainly turned and it is most definitely getting towards the winter now. I always love the change over between seasons - especially when autumn really takes hold and in a place like this it's spectacular to watch the greens turn to orange. One of the trees on Canon Bank looked as if it were on fire just a week ago. It's practically bare now - I just wish the weather were not so wet! The damp is causing us some issues. One of them being that people aren't visiting us which was expected after Halloween. I'm told by other staff that it's entirely normal for us to have only seen a handful of people by lunchtime but it seems so alien after, just 2 weeks ago, struggling to seat everyone at the 2:30pm show. Another issue the rain is causing is the ground. The massive amount of rainfall we've had has meant that the 'wet-weather shelter' is no good and birds would very quickly become very muddy if we were to tether them there. We've been in conversations this week to fix this as it has meant a few of the birds being indoors for a while. We've decided that, after going around the houses a little bit, the best solution is to put down a membrane and a good layer of gravel underneath the current shelter. This always was the plan but the shelter was erected so quickly at the start of a very busy season when we were new so it got missed.

 The weather was however kind to us over the Halloween period. Our Twilight Owls flying displays were very well received by all accounts. The displays were modeled on the Hawk Conservancy Trust's 'Owls by Moonlight' evenings (which are fabulous and should you ever have the opportunity to attend an evening with them then seize the opportunity!) and Gary helped us to choreograph and light the arena and it had a stunning impact. The meadow looked great and all the owls did very well. Ash was a little slow on one of the nights towards the end of the week but he's only young! In fact the only night we had rain was on Halloween itself and it was still lovely - our audience that night were especially brilliant as they still sat with us and really bought into the spirit of the event. They were all wet but nearly all smiling and that's good enough for me. Hopefully we'll run similar events for Halloween next year so if you missed it this time then make sure you get a ticket next time around. 




We've now dropped down to one flying demo each day at the earlier time of 1:30pm for over the winter. We found that 2:30pm was just too late and lots of people wanted to get back on the road if the weather was poor. We've also moved our Wild Heron feed to 3pm until we're back in the main season - partly as it's really starting to get dark by 4pm. This seems to be working well and gives us as bird staff a little more time in the afternoon as well as the morning. If you are planning to visit please remember that the castle is closed at this time of year, as is the main cafe but that our tea room is still serving the best cakes in Cumbria and hot soup and sandwiches - what better on a cool autumnal afternoon? We're flying until 23rd December so do take the opportunity to come along! 













We had a radio interview with Metro radio a couple of days ago too. It's always nice to be able to discuss the work we are doing and promote ourselves to the world. Not so great perhaps when my interview went put at somewhere between 1am and 2am on Friday morning - not sure that's where our target audience will be found but a plug's a plug!


The three yellow billed kites have made the trip back to HCT for the winter as the big aviary they were in this season is not sheltered a enough for what can be a very delicate species. They are back with the bigger kite team in Andover and will return in the Spring next year ready to do it all again! 





We've been in discussions together this week about the best way forward for the centre too. We're all very passionate about the centre and all thoroughly believe that it will grow into one of the best of it's kind in the country especially with the help of HCT. I'm putting together these plans at the moment so if you're a regular visitor or a Friend of Muncaster then you can rest assured that we'll be working hard to make the experience of the Hawk and Owl Centre even better for next year. I'll keep you posted. 

It's taken me so long to get around to writing my blog this time - I thought that things would slow down a little after the main summer period and, in some respects, it has. On the other hand so much is happening with plans for the centre making it an exciting but busy time. We had the visit from Penny and Gary from HCT at the end of September to iron out a few issues we were having with the Halloween 'Twilight Owls Show' which is now looking like it's going to be a beautiful experience for all those who attend. To anyone who's ever visited the Hawk Conservancy Trust you may know that they run 'Owls by Moonlight' evenings and our displays is modeled on these evenings. But the backdrop of the lit castle and the atmosphere of the lighting we have created on the meadow is just such a visual feast that I'm certain that attendants to the show will have never seen anything quite like it before - I'm just praying for good weather again. (I seem to be doing that a lot since my move to Cumbria!). More information about timings and prices over the Halloween period can be found here http://www.muncaster.co.uk/special-events/halloween-week.

Ria with Nutmeg

We have also been busy discussing plans for next year's developments and how we are going to go about achieving them. The bulk of the manual work will need to be done after Halloween and over the winter period when we are closed. Given that we will be flying right up to December 23rd this year at 2:30pm every day (and feeding Herons at 4pm) this doesn't give us a large amount of time to be closed completely to visitors. On the plus side if you fancy wrapping up warm on a lovely winter's afternoon you will be treated to some wonderful flying from the hardiest members of our flying team everyday on the Wildflower Meadow. The plans will make our work here so much more efficient and will definitely make anyone's visit to the centre even more special - can you tell I'm keeping most of our plans a secret for now? Gary and Penny's input with all these plans has, of course, been invaluable and we are so very lucky to be working with an organisation that has so much expertise in working with birds of prey and building a centre of excellence. Keep watching this blog and the facebook page for more updates.



Aside all of the hard work each of us have actually managed to take a week off over the past 3 weeks. The wonderful Ria has been here for almost a month now and covered for Emma, Stuart and I to take some leave. She's also been such a breath of fresh air to the centre and her enthusiasm hasn't wavered for three weeks. Actually I am very tempted to let Penny know that she won't be returning to HCT at all and that we will be keeping her now!

Heat lamps and solid roofs on all of the aviaries are all now in place and fully operational. It's very comforting to see the warm red glow coming from the bird's housing when the temperature dips just a little low. So far it's not been too cold but we have had a couple of ground frosts. With the wind chill I'm expecting it to get very cold very quickly after Halloween - which is just as well because many of the birds will be rested after this point. They will be fattened up for the winter and be given a well deserved rest from demonstrations until spring time next year.
 





One final note is one on Herriot. Last week he decided to soar and glide a little further than we usually like him to into the valley. We're all very proud of the progress he has made since our arrival here in May and being able to watch an eagle like this soar over the castle is incredible.

He did however take the biscuit a little by flying just a little too far over the valley and making his part of the 2:30pm demonstration last a little over 3 hours. Stuart and I managed to find him in the woodland just this side of the estuary by tracking his radio transmitter. He was very pleased to see us as I think he had gotten himself well and truly lost! Stuart was a little stressed that day....

It's noticeably cooler as we head closer to October now. The birds are all eating a little more food to hold their weight and the heating is coming on sometimes in my house which is a first! Although I do have to admit to having the fire on a fair few times - Delilah seems to like it and always sits as close as she dares. We're now also starting to rest birds who have worked particularly hard over the summer - Nutmeg the Lanner Falcon being one of those so he's enjoying not having to do a great deal to earn his keep. ASBO has stepped up to the mark after starring in our Friend's of Muncaster evening a couple of weeks ago. If you haven't been to see him fly yet and you get the chance then you really should as he regularly gives us bird staff Goosebumps to watch him fly - "Tinglyyy!" as Stuart would put it.

Ash now fully grown and flying well

Now it's quieter we're also all going to get a chance to take some time away from the centre. After starting in May the work we've done has been pretty intensive and none of us have had much chance to take stock (although I'm sure Emma and Stuart would happily tell you that I'm never here!). Because we're a three person team and we always need two staff here to operate we've been joined by Ria, who has traveled up from the Hawk Conservancy Trust to cover for us all. We're all so far enjoying having someone else on the team and I for one can say its so enjoyable to listen to a commentary from someone new at the shows. I am hoping that Ria's time here will be useful to her too as its a very different dynamic to working at the Trust. A smaller bird handling team, a broader attraction and different shows all mean that it should be an experience so I hope that she feels welcome and that she enjoys her time here.

We had a visit from John Hoosen from the National Trust who has been working with species specific to Cumbria and looking particularly at the Netted Carpet Moth which we have a small stronghold of here at Muncaster - a rarity in this part of the Lakes I'm told. With Emma planning the conservation projects in the coming months this is a species well worth thinking about. I'm hoping we can all get a chance to see the moth at dusk before it gets too cold!

Walrus and Stuart have been working together to get ready for winter. All of the aviaries now have power which means that Stuart has started putting heat lamps in with the smaller, more vulnerable birds first. To see the warm red glow of those lamps inside the houses of these susceptible birds is very comforting. The weighing room is also being re-roofed soon as it was practically flooded earlier this week after heavy rain. It looks as if it's needed a new one for a while so Martin and Murray have temporarily fixed it before the real thing goes on next week (I think!).
 We've got a visit from Penny and Gary from HCT next week as well which will be very useful. There's always so much to discuss and I think next year's plans are going to play a part in these talks - We're all very excited about what's to come after a very successful season this year.