Sunday 29 March 2015

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:

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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:

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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:
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Finally, we had a Steller's Sea Eagle, which is the heaviest eagle in the world:
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Check out the size of the bird's feet! Its toes are almost as thick as the handlers' fingers!
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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!
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Finally, one non-bird-related photo - we also saw this huge trebucet fire a flaming ball across the field!
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Oh, and there was a castle to explore too, of course!
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Mike

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Friday 20 March 2015

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:

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Spring is fast approaching, with buds swelling on the Sweet Chestnut for a few weeks now:
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Bluebell shoots are also pushing up:
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And I got a nice picture of a bumble bee a couple of weeks ago, sunning itself on one of our log piles:
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I'm pleased to see this pipe is in use again:
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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:
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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:
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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!
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Then, bolt the board to the log:
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Turn it the other way up...
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And start your chainsaw sculpture, as shown in this video I made a few years ago. Here's the end result:
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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:
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And there you have it, one piece of simple chainsaw sculpture!
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All I need to do now is find a use for all the sawdust and offcuts...
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Mike

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