Hi guys it me Tom.....

I attended the farmers weekley meet in shropshire as a friend of mattys and thought everyone i met where intresting characters, good fun and i could probably learn alot from them.

Bit about me- I run a bird of prey centre at whitehouse farm centre in Morpeth, Northumberland...get your self down! :D So fly alot of birds of prey...if you ever have any questions on wild birds of prey I'm your man. I am 19 years old but have been in with birds for many many years (I love saying that)

Anyways i look forward to contributing to the forum and friday/saturday was class.

kindest regards

 

Hi Tom,

    It was really nice to meet you at the weekend meeting, and nice to see you enjoyed yourself and have joined the Forum. I thought it was a great occasion with a good dinner and chat on Friday and two very excellent speakers on Saturday morning. Just to meet members we have chatted with on the forum in the face is a bonus in itself. I hope the Forum Members Meeting takes off and we can all meet, with other members again next year.

   Like your picture, best wishes, Ally.

 

Hi Tom - welcome to the forums.

Nice picture. Thought you might have chosen one of a pigeon though ;)

very funny...pigeons dont like me at all! :)

Hi Tom welcome on board our happy ship.

Any pics from the other night, you can PM them to me.

I'll keep them safe!!!!

I think the only pictures I have are the ones of matty being sick in the sink haha! He asked me to take them while he was throwing up - that is skill!

The gammon didn't go down too well but no need for that vivid graphology.

Rachel - pigeons! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Hiya Tom - glad you have bitten the bullet and joined us.  It was great to meet you - Matty is very lucky to have someone to look after him like that.  Good job you can hold yer drink!  x Lizzy

matty s:

The gammon didn't go down too well

The going down wasn't the problem, it was the coming back up!! Well done Tom for being there to hold his hair back!

Nice to have met you Tom, I may quiz you on Buzzards at some point, we're not meant to have them round here, except for the occassional one blown off course, but there were seven in our wood last autumn!

Buzzards have been on the up for a while now...they will soon be a pest (which kills me to say) and DEFRA and the like are already looking into a controlled cull, which is a shame but hey i try not to get heavily involved in it!

They'd better not come culling my ones! I can see where they can be a problem in some areas, but there are a lot of rabbits and very few sheep around here, and they're hugely exciting to have swooping around the tractor! I've lived with much bigger and more aggressive predators, and have no problem with anything we get in this country.

I was surprised at the mess they make eating a rabbit. Bits every where!

yes they are messy eaters haha!its good too as the rabbits they take are the weaker 1s or the diseased 1s as a buzzard (you might not think this) are not that quick and rabbits can easily get away!

I don't care which rabbits they get, the more the merrier! The buzzards often perch on the straw stack for a look around, as do kestrels (they never seem to bother the shelducks that nest up there though). The kestrels will drop on rats and mice close to the stack, and along the big hedge and wood nearby, but the buzzards only seem to kill in the middle of the field (I've never watched a kill, just seen the evidence). I assume that's to do with speed and manouverability.

As an aside, I saw a kestrel drop on a weasel a couple of weeks ago! It can't have been a clean catch, as after a very fast struggle the weasel got away, and the kestrel took a few seconds to pull itself together before flying off.

 Hi guys, I am aaliya here, and I am completely new to this site, this will be great to be here with all of you.

 

Hi Tom,

It was nice.It's my first time of hearing that in a 19 years of age you are running a bird of prey?

That was so awesome,,I was afraid of that bird..They are so wild .How did you run them?

I was so curious about it Tom...