Birds of Prey at Warwick Castle

A couple of weeks ago we were at Warwick Castle with my family, and saw a brilliant display by some birds of prey:

The show started with this Verreaux's Eagle Owl (if I have the name right...) zooming in from the woods to land on the handler's arm:

After the owl had done its stuff, a Bald Eagle came out ot play, and put on a great show by flying between the handler near the audience and another one up on the battlements of the castle:

Finally, we had a Steller's Sea Eagle, which is the heaviest eagle in the world:

Check out the size of the bird's feet! Its toes are almost as thick as the handlers' fingers!

There's also lots of peacocks roaming around - I guess they are too big for the eagles to tackle, though earlier in the day we did see one of the display birds having a go at catching a duck!

Finally, one non-bird-related photo - we also saw this huge trebucet fire a flaming ball across the field!

Oh, and there was a castle to explore too, of course!

Mike

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Spring in the woods and chainsaw sculpture

Sorry for the lack of blog posts recently, I've been busy with work, visiting these exciting organisations, and also making stuff like this:

Spring is fast approaching, with buds swelling on the Sweet Chestnut for a few weeks now:

Bluebell shoots are also pushing up:

And I got a nice picture of a bumble bee a couple of weeks ago, sunning itself on one of our log piles:

I'm pleased to see this pipe is in use again:

It may not be obvious, but once you look at the base of it, you can see that a bird has been busy filling it with moss to make a nest:

The exact same thing happened last year too, as you can see in this video:

I've also been trying a new way of making my chainsaw-carved wooden stools. First, you need a wooden board with some holes drilled in it:

Then, you put it on top of the log the log which will become the stool, and drill through the holes - only going in a short distance though!

Then, bolt the board to the log:

Turn it the other way up...

And start your chainsaw sculpture, as shown in this video I made a few years ago. Here's the end result:

All that needs doing then is to remove the stool from the board, and trim a slice off the end to get rid of the screw holes:

And there you have it, one piece of simple chainsaw sculpture!

All I need to do now is find a use for all the sawdust and offcuts...

Mike

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