Sunday 22 September 2013

A funny kind of few days.

I'm on top of the gardening at the moment so over the last couple of days I tackled a job I have been putting off - jet washing bird aviaries.
Not just any old bird though, this particular bird is my daughters Buzzard, Darla.
First I needed to jet wash the aviary next to her that is now empty (my daughter recently sold her Harris Hawks) then move Darla into it so I could then jet wash her aviary and then knock the two aviaries into one.
I don't have much to do with any of the Birds of prey here because they're my daughters and Mr TG's but I chat to Darla every day and I stupidly believed this daily chat would be sufficient to endear me to Darla who would then be completely cooperative during the moving procedure.
Let's just say I soon realised my folly. Darla doesn't have mews jesses for some reason which would have made her easy to catch and despite my chatting to her every day it seems she didn't like me quite as much as I'd thought. It took me about 10 minutes before I could even get close enough to entice her onto a glove but no way was she going to let me move her. After a couple of attacks from her feet I figured I needed a new method and it needed to be a quick method, Darla wasn't freaking out though - I was!
In the end I put on two hawking gloves and simply picker her up - yep, it was that easy. After all that effort before I just needed to pick her up.
With Darla safely in the first cleaned aviary I could get on with cleaning hers and then began taking down the middle partition, all under the watchful eye of Darla who now has a very large perfectly clean aviary.


Thankfully all the other Birds of prey (Barn Owl, 2x Eagle owls & 1 Great Horned Owl) all have external flight aviaries with inside nest areas so they don't get in the same mess as Darla's (hers is an internal flight with external areas) and just need daily raking of pellets etc (NOT my job).

It's a shame I'm not so careful when it comes to the cleaning of my PT. Look what I found growing in the waste heap dump

Looks like a lovely Asiatic Lily to me!

Not sure what this one is but it's certainly not a weed


I've also been taking pallets apart with my super duper pallet taker aparter, looks like I'm going to have a good supply of scrapwood for all those winter projects I like to do (and I have a whole load of them). This is the wood from just 2 6ft pallets - even the stringers are perfect for re-use.


The only problem I encountered while stripping the pallets was the weather, well the sun in particular. It's hard not to climb on top of the pallets and soak up the sun when the sky is this colour


So why fight it I say!

4 comments:

  1. Glad that you're back on form.

    That variegated plant looks a bit like a vinca - is that possible.

    I think you are very brave to go in with a buzzard! I have flown a barn owl at a falconry and loved it!

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  2. I've been catching up on some of the blogs I follow and saw the amazing photo of your daughter's buzzard. Darla is beautiful and it is good to hear you survived the cleaning of the aviaries. Looks like you have been busy on this first day of fall.

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  3. What a beautiful bird....if I had that many birds of prey I'd never get anything done.

    Loving the blue sky and looking forward to seeing what master pieces come from all that wood.xxxx

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  4. wow love the pic of Darla, she's a beauty. How did your daughted come to have birds of prey?that clear blue sky looks good too - a few more days like that before winter would be fantastic

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