Tropical Day

What a change in the temperature. It must have been a few degrees above freezing today, it seemed like the tropics. I didn't even need a jacket. With the "warmer" weather, I managed to get quite a lot done. I hand cleaned almost all of the birds, aviaries and weathering pens. Although, the frozen ground makes it impossible to lift all of the mess as it is solid. All of the hospital birds were cleaned out, treated, and medicine dispensed. The bins were emptied, skip tidied, and food readied for tomorrow. The weathering pen doors were off for about four hours today, until the snow started again. We had about two inches last night, no idea if we will get any tonight.

Jinty, the Saker falcon, went on a complete strop. She's been really calm lately, however, she just didn't want me in the pen today, and decided to try and fly over me, catching the side of my face in the process. Just a small scar, it could have been a lot worse.

Everybody seems to help the garden birds during cold weather, no one seems to care about the Birds of Prey. I don't suppose the public are willing to leave the odd half rabbit, mouse, hamster or vole lying out in their back garden ? In weather like this, they are really suffering, becoming more desperate. They are taking greater risks to get food, especially what little road kill there is. This is leading to more and more becoming the victim of collisions with cars.

We participated in a teacher conference at Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow on Thursday. The "Leonardo Effect", how to integrate Art and Science into the curriculum, demonstrating the synergy between the two subjects. The conference used "Flight" as the introductory phase, using Leonardo Di Vinci's obsession with flying to illustrate how he used Art and Science to further his ideas. The principal of the project is to make learning more enjoyable, and to allow the children to use their creative skills to learn more.