Thursday 27 December 2007

Come Home

A nice tune for everyone to mellow out to - " Come Home" by Findlay Brown. Think Neil Young crossed with Simon and Garfunkel with a sprinkling of Jimmy Page Pedal Steel geetar ( ala "Tangerine").

Some of you may recognize it as the music in the Mastercard advert. Would be nice if this tune played everytime you opened your Mastercard statement eh ! ?


Wednesday 26 December 2007

Injured Crossbill, Glen Isla

This is especially for John who posted below regarding a crossbill with an injured wing found at Glen Isla on Christmas day.

The best bet would be to contact the local SSPCA officer - phone 01224 581236.

I am not willing to give out my personal email on the web for obvious reasons, but you can private post me your email via Bird Forum and I will get back to you. I am 'Griffin' on Bird Forum. I can phone you instead if you wish.

We have a really good vet up here at Huntly, Lawrence Brain, who takes in injured birds - I gave the SSPCA an exhausted Fieldfare a few years ago and they passed it on to Mr. Brain where it made a full recovery and was released.

Regarding the Crossbill, is the wing broken ( drooping by side) or is it just strained (can't take off) ? I can possibly get it to someone who rears crossbills ( under DEFRA licence) via a colleague but I would have to come and collect it, or you would have to bring it to me in Aberdeen. They are notoriously difficult to feed in captivity from what I understand, and it will need fluids ASAP. Best bet is local vet in the short term just to keep it alive. Make sure you at least make water available to the bird ( in a saucer/very small container like that for pakora sauce) and you could try sunflower seeds, but I doubt it will eat them.

Would have to examine it to tell you what species - unlikely to be Parrot, but possible ! A Deeside ringed Common Crossbill recently turned up at Lintrathen so please check to see if it is either metal ringed (probably right leg) and /or colour ringed (both legs).

Good luck !

Monday 24 December 2007

Totally Hacked Off

Sincere apologies to all seven regular readers of Loxia Fantastica for the disappearance of all the posts.

Some thoughtful individual hacked in to my blog site last week and deleted all the archived posts. These are unretrievable as far as I can tell so not much I can do but start all over again.

I can only assume that it is someone that has been offended/threatened by whatever I have written on here.....well that could be just about anyone then !

Merry Christmas, and remember, it could happen to you too !