Our influence stretches far and wide...

Visitors Evan & Patricia from New Zealand got in touch just at the end of season to let us know that they are spreading the word about Huntly Peregrines on the other side of the world!  Their note said:

We very much enjoyed calling into see the Peregrines and other wildlife on August 23rd and to talk with all the staff about the Scottish & New Zealand wildlife and vintage cars & motorcycles, and to be allowed to view the most out standing photos you showed us on your computer, so as promised I have managed to get your car stickers as far south as Otaki N.Z. as these photos show, and as time goes by I will get them even further south. Good luck, and keep up the good work.

Cheers, Evan & Patricia
New Zealand

And here's the evidence:

 

 

If anyone else has got pictures of their Huntly Peregrines sticker (or other mementos) in unusual places, do let us know through huntly.peregrines@forestry.gsi.gov.uk.

Peregrines close with a bang

Sunday 27th of September was our closing day for 2009 at the Peregrine Centre & as you can see, it did as we promised “go with a bang”.
Attended by over 100 people & animals, including giraffes, rabbits, giant frogs & er, rather unusual big purple things, the day's fun included giant games of Jenga & dominoes, a scavenger hunt, tree orienteering, pond dipping & some badge making – until the machine mysteriously broke down.

For gastronomes there was a flaming BBQ with home made salads, cakes & brownies all served with a warm cup of tea or coffee, by two of our diamonds Bertha & Miriam.

If that wasn’t enough there was also face painting in our newly finished Outdoor Classroom.
On behalf of all the Wardens we would like to offer a huge thank you to all of our visitors over the year & to all of our volunteers (young & old) without whom we couldn’t offer the level of service we do.
And so that’s it for another year. We’ll be back in Spring 2010 so watch this space & keep watching the skies for peri’s.

Lost Friend & Colleague

Today we have learned the sad news that one of our first volunteers, Elaine, has died.

Despite illness from a young age, Elaine was a bright and vibrant person with artistic talent that most of us envied. She could “doodle” a masterpiece in no time while talking to you…. Multi-tasking at its best.

Her talents with a paintbrush didn’t only extend to paper or canvas though - as you can see from the photograph she made a fantastic job of brightening up the outside of our cabin.

As well as her artistic talents, Elaine also had a talent of making you laugh. Her laugh was infectious & could light up a room. If anything needed to be done Elaine was always one of the first to offer to help.

She will be sadly missed by all of us.

Our thoughts go out to Hodge her husband, her Mum and Dad and the rest of her family.

Closing Day

Well we’re coming to a close for the season now.  But we’re not going out quietly, we’ll be going out with a bang as usual.

On Sunday 27th of September we’re planning to have a big family fun day here at the Huntly Peregrine Wild Watch Centre to celebrate another fantastic season.

There will be face painting, giant games, scavenger hunts, tree orienteering, pond dipping and of course peregrine falcons to see.

If that’s not enough for you there will also be a BBQ and a chance to have a go at some bird ringing under the watchful eyes of experienced licensed ringers.

If you’ve been following the progress of our peregrines over the year then why not come along and help us celebrate their success in style.

We look forward to seeing you all

Dreich, stoorin, snell winds

One of our favourite pastimes in the North East is taking about the weather, so much so that we even have our own words to describe it, e.g. dreich, stoorin, snell winds.  As you can imagine after last Thursday and Friday when we had over a month of rainfall in 36 hours we had plenty to "spik aboot" (talk about).

Elgin to Aberdeen was the worst hit area, with the centre slap bang in the middle and at the bottom of a hill.  We expected quite a lot of damage because as we left on Thursday night all the ditches were fit to burst, and there was a waterfall cascading down the steps between us and Bertha. It was with much trepidation that we opened at the weekend.

Fortunately the site had coped very well with the adverse conditions and the only major damage was where a pipe was blocked by debris and washed out about 50 metres of the new path.  Unfortunately we will have to close this bit of path off until the contractors can get an opportunity to repair it but at the moment there are more pressing repairs to be done at other Forestry Commission sites.  This of course, does not stop access into the top hide where our adult peregrines have reclaimed their home and spend most of the day quietly contemplating. Peregrines are masters at quiet contemplation!

Not everyone was so lucky - the media reported on the havoc caused by nature and our thoughts are with those who were so badly affected.

A wildlife experience

Family Emmerson (Tim, Tess, Bailey and Reilly) from Hull got in touch to let us know how much they had enjoyed their trip to the WildWatch centre a couple of weeks ago:

We visited your centre near huntly a couple of weeks ago while on holiday. What a fantastic experience we had, we saw the peregrines and all the other types of bird you could see up in the big hide. We even saw the red squirrels, which was good as we only see greys down here in Hull. My two children thought the place was cool getting this close to the birds.

We were staying just down the road from Huntly and in the garden of the house we had a family of red deer which we saw in the mornings and a couple of buzzards which were nesting in a tree near the gate.

Please could you pass on our thanks to the wardens on duty as the were most helpful and answered all our questions. I have enclosed a couple of photos of our visit and of the buzzards.

Pictures below:

Buzzard



Red Squirrels



Siskins



Glad you enjoyed your trip!

Junior Peregrine Investigators and Nature Detectives

Very BIG thanks to all the Junior Peregrine Investigators and Nature Detectives who joined us at Huntly Peregrine Wild Watch over the last five weeks.

We hope you enjoyed the games and investigating the birds, mammals, mini-beasts and trees and practising your survival skills. You all did brilliantly.

We all thoroughly enjoyed having you here and hope to see as many of you as possible next year.

In the meantime keep up your detecting and investigating, so you will have lots to tell us about next year.

Amy, Flora, Karen, Marie, Martin and Miriam.

Thanks from the wardens...

On behalf of the Wardens also a big thank you to all the volunteers, who gave up their time to organise, plan & run the JPI’s & Nature Detectives this year. We hope you had as much fun as all the children did to!

Gibby, Denise & Neil