The sunshine during this week would have been wonderful for the Easter holidays with our York handling display and flying shows at Harlow Carr but sadly everything is closed during the Coronavirus lockdown. Thankfully the UK government has the emergency financial support, so our birds won't go hungry. So instead, our animals are enjoying some time off and I'm using the time to catch up some maintenance work. For example, on Easter Saturday, usually one of our busiest days of the year, I spent the day painting an aviary.
It's also vital that the birds are kept happy, healthy and with plenty of attention given. We have named the new Steppes Eagle 'Buzz', suggested by one of our Facebook fans. He's 9 years old and has rather poor feathers, largely due to the way he was previously kept. We are feeding him nutrition rich foods such as quail and pheasant, plenty of sunshine and fresh water each day to help accelerate a moult - the natural process of dropping old feathers and growing new ones. He has become very used to me now, almost too friendly at times (if you know what I mean). The aim will be to get him flying free later this summer.