This week has been an amazing week, the change in weather played a great part as it allowed the work at the Centre to move forward once again. During January 2011 we received some good support from the local business community plus some help from the BTCV who helped with a great team of hard working volunteers.
The Centre's own team of staff & volunteers have also been busy too, working to make Owl Boxes & helping out around the new aviary area, the bird staff have been busy training the birds at the Centre with some of our team out at projects sites checking on how Barn Owls have coped in the wild during the recent cold snap.
Our fundraising team have been very busy, working to find important funding to support all the work that is going on, January is not a good time for this especially during the financial problems the UK is facing, 2011 is going to be tough year so fingers crossed we can continue on with the support that is being given. Without help from businesses & the general public we would not get half of the jobs done. All in all a productive week. A special thanks to everyone who as offered or continues to offer support to the Barn Owl Centre!
Bookings for flying experiences are now coming in which is brilliant news, this is a great help to our birds especially after this winter period, which seemed to have lasted for years. It feels really great to get life kick started again.
With the re-start of work in the new aviary area, first we received a mini digger from Hirebase based in Goucester, this we will need for a while to move different aggregates around - from Pea Gavel for the aviary bases to Type One stone to form the paths. With clear blue skies & frosty mornings, the ground is just right, much better than working in the snow or on those miserable rainy days. Lets hope the weather stays clear for a while!
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| The arrival of a 3 ton mini Digger from Hirebase. Gloucester. |
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| The arrival of 80ton of Pea Gravel from Elliots Sand & Gravel.Cheltenham. |
What followed from the mini digger was the arrival of 80 tone of washed Pea Gravel from Elliots Sand & Gravel who are based in Cheltenham, this gravel is to be used for the base of all the new aviaries, this materials keeps all the aviaries clean & tidy, which in turn keeps all the Centre's birds clean & very healthy. Now we need the labour force & who better than calling in the help of BTCV, an organisation that provides a hard working team of volunteers.
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| BTCV Volunteers & the mini digger eating away at 80 ton of gravel. |
Now the BTCV work force are on site each aviary can be filled with the gravel, help was provided by the mini digger to load all the wheelbarrows. If you look closely you will see the visitors paths around the aviaries & the garden border areas taking shape, this will form what we have called the Owl Garden, more on the Owl Garden later on.
Next job was the delivery of the timber cladding, which came from a business up in York, with the arrival of the cladding, this will allow us to complete all the walls of the aviaries & once completed we can look at calling in the roofers (Pro-Felt Roofing - Gloucester) to start felting the roofs that will cover the aviaries.
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| York Timber Products delivering the timber cladding on a nice frosty morning |
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| York Timber Products delivering the timber cladding on a nice frosty morning |
Pro-Felt Roofing over the years have always supported our charity with the roofing of our bird aviaries, they do an excellent & very profession job too! This stage of works we are really looking forward to because once the roofs are on we can look forward to bring in the electricians to fix all the night lights in each of the aviaries. Lets hope the weather stays kind to us for a while because good progress is being made to get the aviaries completed.
Whilst all the building work is going on, we also managed to use what timber we had left to make our Owl Nest Boxes, our temporary nest box work shop (below) looks a bit empty & sad even though we have in stock 20 Owl Boxes which are due to go out to our customers. More timber will be arriving very soon so we can build up a stock supply of at least 50 Owl Boxes plus 6 Owl Manors, this will keep our Conservation Team busy.
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| This shows our temporary Owl Nest Box workshop. more timber is awaiting delivery so in time we should be well stocked up with Owl boxes, we do have 20 in stock so no panic yet. |
Not forgetting the Centre's birds, all are very well & in a relaxed & comfortable state, some are now starting their re-training due a long winter spell off duty.
Our flying experiences have now re-started & people from all over are now starting to make their bookings, this is great to see. On Thursday we had a cracking photography day with the UK's wildlife Photographer of the Year 'Danny Green' Being a regular visitor & a friend of our charity, he brought with him a number of photographers for a days photography. With the frost on the ground & a foggy atmosphere, the setting was perfect to provide a day where all photographers could capture flight shots & natural stills. On looking at the images that were being taken throughout the day, they did look amazing & from the smiling faces, all were pleased on how the day went. A brilliant day with a great group of photographers, cheers Danny!
The birds that were off duty simply enjoyed the sunny days we were experiences.
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| Here is a shot taken of our temporary aviaries, which will be replaced by the new aviaries. Here you can see two of our special Barn Owls, Gyzmo left & Paddy on the right. Both enjoying the sun shining through into their aviaries. If you want to see better pictures of our birds, please visit the number of photo galleries on our web site |
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| Above is an image showing our sunlit temporary bird weathering area, this allows a number of our birds to sit out & enjoy the warm sunlight, this area is netted over for safety reasons, we do fly Eagle Owls loose around the farm & the last thing we need is for an Eagle Owl to return back to the aviary area & take any of the birds off their perches. The safety of all our birds is paramount to us! |
Most evenings this week we have had some great sunsets, this always creates a nice ending to a long day & a time when we continue on with the training of some of our Owls, this is normally a time when we fly & exercise a number of Barn Owls.
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| A winter sunset at the Barn Owl Centre |
Below is Juliette, one of the main bird handlers & trainers at the Centre, here she can be seen just about to start some training with one of our Barn Owls called Barny.
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| Juliette with Barny the Barn Owl who is 25 years old. |
As a working sanctuary for unwanted birds of prey we do take every effort & care to place all our birds into some kind of working program, this enables all our birds to have a life outside 4 walls of an aviary, for us & for the birds, this is much better than keeping them locked up for 24hrs a day. Please note that it is completely illegal to release any captive bred Barn Owls to the wild!
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| Night training with Barny, she loves every minute of it & she is great with visitors who book into our Owl Flying Experiences |
IS BARNY THE BARN OWL THE OLDEST LIVING BARN OWL IN THE UK?
Barny the Barn Owl is aged at 25 years, her hatch date is stamped on an old metal DOE leg ring, which she wears. If the date of hatching is correct we can say that she could be the oldest living captive bred Barn Owl found in the UK, if this is true then the predicted 20 to 25 year life span of a captive bred Barn Owl will soon be beaten by her. She is a very fit Barn Owl & is very healthy indeed, fingers crossed she will live for years to come because she is a real pleasure to work with.
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| Barny going through her evening exercises with Juliette |
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| Julliette with Barny, Julliette by the way really hates having her photo taken where Barny is the complete opposite & what a poser he is! |
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| Doesn't she look great at 25 years old! |
If anyone knows of a captive bred Barn Owl or knows of a wild Barn Owl that is of the same age or even older then please give the Centre a call, it would be a real pleasure to hear from you.
Tel: 01452 383999
On this note we hope you enjoyed today's blog, more updates will be uploaded soon
Keep safe & please take a bit of time to look round our
web site to see how you can offer some help or even get involved by booking into one of our experiences.
