17 May 2020
/How are you?
I hope your week has been okay and that your weekend has allowed you to spend some time in nature, but, if not, I hope you enjoy this wee glimpse of our life in Scotland’s East Neuk.
This week, I’m sharing about Rhu, House Martins, Murray the Harris Hawk and more.
Incredibly, a year has already passed since we brought Rhu home as a puppy. He’s fitted in to our household brilliantly and I am delighted with his progress so far.
So, to celebrate Rhu, I’m sharing some of his photos from puppy to now, along with a couple of clips of him in action.
Rhu
This first clip is from Rhu’s first day with us, when we introduced him to our Patterdale terriers, Peter and Shinty. Shinty is the one with three legs ;-)
At the beginning, it was all about the excess rolls of velvety skin - saggy handfuls of it fell in folds around Rhu’s neck, joints and face, suggesting he had a lot of growing to do.
All puppies grow up fast, but Rhu seemed to spring up to full size particularly fast. Maybe that’s why he has always had a huge appetite! Every meal time is like a Hungry Hippo game for Rhu and most of the time he’s not even aware of what it is he’s just eaten.
Here’s Rhu at four months old, waiting to mop up leftovers after finishing his food. You’ll notice he’s overtaken the terriers in height already but is still wise enough to wait for an ‘in’, and not risk the wrath of Shinty. (Which is a terrifying thing.)
As with all my dogs, I begin their training with play but, once Rhu was around 6 months old, his training gradually became more focused. As a dog that lives to please, Rhu responded well and quickly to the time that I spent working with him and he soon got the idea of hawking and walking to heel. He and Lewis, my Gos, have formed a good partnership already and I am looking forward to developing it in the future.
Here’s Rhu earlier this month, working a scent out on the flying field and doing what every HPR does best!
The return of the migrating Passerines
As well as celebrating Rhu’s ‘Gotcha Day’ (and thanks for that phrase, Fiona!), this week I’m also marking the recent World Migratiory Bird Day (09 May) with a look at some of the welcome annual visitors we have seen return to Hammer Inn.
Passerine is the classification of birds that perch - ie have three toes facing forward and one back, enabling them to perch. Passerines includes song birds and two of our favourite migrating birds - the (barn) swallow and the house martin - which both returned to Hammer Inn just around World Migratory Bird Day.
That’s not why they showed up here, of course! The reason birds (and other species) migrate is to follow a food source; May just happens to be when flies, the primary food of swallows and house martins, hatch in large numbers in Scotland.
Swallows have an elongated split tail and a red throat, whilst Martins are a slightly stockier looking bird with a pure white underside. Not easy to tell at a distance and when they fly at such high speed, but easier to see when they land. A bit like a Spitfire and a Hurricane!
As is typical for each breed, the swallows have nested in the barns and two pairs of house martins are re-using old nests under the eaves inside an old shed where I keep my chest freezers.
The house martins use clumps of mud to construct their nests and, since the ducks’ run is just outside their shed, they have been able to access the mud they needed easily. There’s even a duck’s feather sticking out of the top of the first nest you can see here.
The martins will raise at least two broods here (probably with 4 or 5 young in each) and we’ll try to capture images of the babies for you, or footage of them fledging and feeding with their parents. For now, we just marvel at the sheer speed and aerobatics of the swallows and house martins as they hoover up flies over the rapeseed crop behind the house.
Murray
This afternoon we’re doing our Live at 5 on Facebook with Murray, one of the Harris Hawks on the team and a big hit with guests who do our Bird of Prey experiences. (Remember those days - when you could go places and do these kinds of things?!) He’s a great guy, Murray. We’ve had him since he was a youngster and he’s proved to be bomb-proof over the years. He’s been very popular as a Videogram subject, which makes life easier for me, as I know he’ll always do well when I fly him.
Harris hawks are the most popular bird of prey used in falconry in the UK today and we’ve used this fantastic photo of Murray as our website’s ‘cover image’, taken by friend and photographer Steven Rennie, from Aberdeenshire.
If you have any questions about Murray, or just want to see him this afternoon, we’ll be Live at 5pm on The Scottish Countryman’s facebook page. See you there?
This week we introduced two new ‘virtual’ products/ options in response to feedback from our lovely customers.
You can now adopt Luna our Barn Owl for just £5/month and we’re also offering our membership on an annual, one-off payment: save two months’ worth and enjoy all the benefits of being in The Scottish Countryman’s Club. These include a 25% discount on all products online, if you join before 25 May.
Anything else you’d like us to introduce? Comment below or reply to the email that led you here.
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Steve
P.S. If you enjoyed hearing about my early years in Torry in last week’s email, you can get my full story as a TSC Club member. If you missed it, or any of my previous email/s, you’ll find them all here.
Over on Instagram recently…
