Osprey at Gigrin!

For at least the past week, we have had a juvenile Osprey visiting the feeding station.
I hope to film it tomorrow (relevant batteries were uncharged today..).
The bird sits on posts, and in trees around the feeding area.

A frequent visitor to Gigrin is  Mike Attwood, and he has posted photographs on his blog

With a little luck I'll have more to post on this bird tomorrow.

Spring is in the air

The recent snow has now mostly receded to lonely drifts on the hills, although the road through the Elan Valley has only been open a week! 
The unseasonal weather has meant many more kites coming to Gigrin for their lunch than is normal in March, and that also raised our meat bill to a new height for the month.

We are working with Simon King on a project to stream live video to the web.
His team are waiting on me to get things sorted here before the live streaming can go ahead. News of this will be the title of a future post.


We have CURRENT VACANCY at the farm - would you like to join our small & friendly team or do you know anyone who may be interested? We have a vacancy for a part time Sales Assistant to work in our newly refurbished & restocked souvenir & gift shop. Initially the hours would be Friday & Saturday afternoons, 1pm to 5pm. Please get in touch with Chris on 01597 810243.

Red kites and snow - again!

We have had 4 - 5" of snow but it has also drifted so making things difficult on the farm.

Main roads are clear, but our road is very slippery up to the yard.

Red kites spring 2013

I've added a short movie to our web site to show the shear number of red kites currently feeding..

www.gigrin.co.uk/redkites2013


The clocks will be changing again too.

Feeding is at 2pm at present. On Sunday 31st March it will switch to 3pm.
Don't get caught out..

Snow at Gigrin

The visiting red kites are now numbering around 400 while the snow continues to lie on the ground.

Two white kites are amongst the crowds of birds - one is number 51 - a frequent visitor in winter.

Much more snow is possible this coming weekend, and with that, there could be anything over 600 red kites here as they would have no other source of food.

There is a bigger movie on our snow report page

Best wishes for a wonderful Christmas & a Happy  New Year

And, a Very Happy New year

How time flies ! The kite numbers feeding continue to grow, this despite the awful weather that has continued to punctuate the weekends.

The wet weather in the spring and summer was mainly to blame for low numbers of immature kites we have seen this year.  Hopefully they will have a better year in 2013.

We had 6 red kites in for rehabilitation in 2012, including J6, a white red kite. He was released in November. He's not yet been seen at the feeding station.

Its been a year of big changes here, all for the better, and the future looks bright too.
We'll be closed on Christmas day, but open again from 1pm on Boxing day.

With best wishes from all at Gigrin.

The clocks are changing again

From Sunday 29th October, Feeding of the red kites will be at 2pm.



Nikon are holding their red kite flight photography day at Gigrin Farm next week (Tuesday 30th October), where they will have both 500mm and 600mm f4 lenses available for delegates to loan - a good opportunity to compare the two lenses in a real life-shooting scenario, especially if you are thinking of purchasing some "big glass" in the near future. http://www.chrisgomersall.co.uk/sworkshops.html

We are expecting to be having our road re-tarmaced.  This will be done on the mornings of 1st and 2nd of November (weather permitting).  The road will be closed on each of the mornings, but back in use for 1pm, as we will still be open as usual.

CCTV is currently being installed. This will enable visitors to the Red Kite Centre so see and switch between a number of the cameras, including a 36x zoom pannable model over looking the red kite feeding.

From Sunday 29th October, Feeding of the red kites will be at 2pm.

Back to normal

This is one of the best times of the year to see the kites feeding, as not only are they are in much greater numbers, but are also arriving bang on time.

This was not the case in August when the kites were nearly always late, and many were not looking their best due to the annual molt.

As my shoulder is not getting back to where it was, we have taken on another kite feeder - Dave.

Colin is seen feeding mid week, and weekends, while Dave feeds on alternate mondays and those days when Colin is not here.

There is a new face in the shop now too. Meghan has joined the team.

Our meat cutting machine has broken down yet again.

Its an expensive item and the company who supply us are charging over £500/week for the hire of a replacement while they repair ours..