Saturday July 3rd 2010

The breeding season is still capable of springing the odd surprise. I mentioned last week that I suspected the Ferruginous Pygmy Owls to be breeding again. I still think they are, but there is a question mark however. We thought we had bred 2 owlets in the first clutch, making a total of 4 owls in total, right? Wrong! This I was doing the bottom feed, i.e. the Breeding Ground Feed, when I happened to be feeding the Ferruginous Pygmy Owls. I looked up to see where they were, as they are like bullets and you have to be aware of them to be able to get in and out of the aviary, when I ‘happened’ to count ‘5’ owls in the aviary?! Now, have the owls re-cycled and successfully bred again, or have we missed one when they bred the first time? This is often guess work, as Pygmy Owls especially, resent being disturbed, so we haven’t actually ‘physically’ checked them. It is possible we missed one of them when they bred first time round. I still suspect the female to be on eggs again. Fingers crossed.

We have a new recruit to the flying team, namely a White-breasted Barn Owl. He is still very small, but he already has his first film appearance under his belt. Yesterday he featured on the film schedule for a programme called ‘See, Hear’, which was being filmed hear at Muncaster. The central character of this particular episode is Rebecca, Hilary’s conservation assistant.

Andy has also contacted Metro Radio, and the owlet is going to be their ‘mascot’, and is likely to be called ‘Metro’. I will include a picture of him at the end of the blog.

Something I am increasingly pre-occupied with this time of year is ‘Wasps’. They are stating to become ‘hard to avoid’. I was cleaning down in the Breeding Ground yesterday, when I came across a rat hole. I thought it might be a good idea to disrupt the run, by aiming the water jet down the hole. I did this for a few minutes, curious as to why the hole didn’t appear to fill up, when I noticed a constant stream of ‘soggy’ wasps filtering back out of the hole. It appears the wasps had evicted the rats! I thought it prudent to return the hose pipe to the hole for a further 5 minutes! meanwhile I bid a hasty retreat.

I will leave you with a picture of ‘Metro’, and a couple of pictures from the sponsored walk.

Wulf
Head Keeper

Metro a White-breasted Barn Owl - Metro Radio mascot Picture courtesy Vicky Lane

This is typical of the kind of landscape on the North Face of Pillar Picture courtesy Wulf Ingham

This is ‘Steeple’, one of the outlying fells, well worth the detour! Picture courtesy Wulf Ingham

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