A wonderful day of Owls and Eagles

Meg bought me a bird of prey experience for two for my birthday. We booked it to take place in August so Meg could be there too. Steve came as an observer and chief cameraman (apologies to him that forgot to change the watermark!)  It took place at Thorseby Courtyard in North Notts with Hawks of Steele. What a wonderful time we had!

 We met a lanar falcon,

 the cutest boobook owl,

 A barn owl,

Sooty is a baby great grey owl.

 Karl flew Sooty between our heads and he was totally silent!

 Our favourite though was Rambo, a golden eagle weighing 7 1/2 lb (just a little more than Meg weighed when she was born) and quite a weight sitting on your wrist. He was magnificent!

Thanks for looking!

Snippets, Rudolf days and a few photos

 I've been very good using up snippets this week. I made some Christmas cards with a stamp from Indigo Blu that fell into my basket and some Be creative embossing Crystals.

 Three very similar DL cards but none with a traditional feel

 This third one has a lot more contrast in real life, but I couldn't seem to capture it in a photo. The embossing Crystals are from the more recent Be Creative  sets. I used Winter Wonderland, Pistachio and Summer Berries. There are more lovely exciting colours coming next week on Hochanda on Wednesday 31st August.

My final card is a mixture of imagination crafts sparkle medium on  Kraft and a very old sentiment from Stamporium. I did some faux blanket stitch in Sakura Jade stardust pen around the sentiment.
Four this time makes up for the fact that I didn't get round to doing Rudolf days cards for July. I am entering these into August Rudolf days with Scrappy Mo and Miss Di's Snippet playground.
Finally here are a few more photos from our holiday in Wales. I've kept it to Butterflies, Birds and a rather handsome beetle this time.

 First we have small tortoiseshell on some Hemp Agrimony.

 Next is a common blue,

Followed by a Wall Brown,

 and a Gatekeeper,

 Anyone know their beetles? I love his turquoise sheen! 

Finally we have a Fritillary, possibly a Dark Green, but I can't be sure - they all look so alike! He had definitely been in the wars too.
If you are ever near a Pembrokeshire Falconry Display I highly recommend it! Here is a photo of Meg with a Harris Hawk and sporting her new short hair do, not that you can see it very well through the rain!

I'm finishing off with a photo of me, which I very rarely do, but my companion was so cute! He went by the name of Frodo and I really wanted to bring him home!

Thanks for looking and all your lovely comments. Back to work next week so I may be around a bit less.

A bit of fresh air and more craft shopping!

Yesterday, Steve, Meg and I went for a walk in the woods.

It had started off a bit misty, but the sun came out and the colours were amazing. It seems to be a good year for berries...

and the sun made them look as if they were glowing. 

The woods seemed alive with bird song and we saw this little chap. (If you can help me identify him I'd be grateful. I thought he might be a black cap, but when he turned he had a little dark patch beneath his beak, which makes me think he is a marsh tit or willow tit, maybe)

There were also some majestic hogweed seedheads, often covered in spider's webs.

I love Autumn! 

Today Meg and I went to Sir stampalot for the demo day. It was great to watch all the ladies demonstrating brayering, stamping, paper piecing and a wide variety of ink techniques. It was particularly lovely to see Brenda and Chris, and also to meet a few more faces from Blog land like Penni - very nice to meet you and hope you didn't have to stop for any trains on the way home! I even managed to exchange a bag of our Bramley's for a box of splendid plum tomatoes from Eddy,  Brenda's Hubby.

It was a fabulous day, and the cherry on the cake at the end of it was to see a red kite as we were driving home! I stopped to let an ambulance out of a side street on the outskirts of Helpston and there it was flying in front of us, with that magnificent forked tail! I am sure our facial expressions were not particularly appropriate to the ambulance driver as we whooped and cried 'Red Kite'! Unfortunately my camera was in the boot of the car, so here is a photo of one I took on holiday (in captivity).

Well, thanks for reading my ramblings. I'll be back with a card or two very soon!

Photos from my holiday

Well, I've been back from holiday for 3 weeks and have realised I haven't shared many photos with you, so I'll do a quick post today and then maybe share some cards with you tomorrow.
Whilst in Suffolk we visited Suffolk Owl Sanctuary, and got up close to some beautiful birds of prey. There was the Red Kite...

and the Buzzard...

and so many owls!

Great Grey owls,

Eagle owls,

barn owls

and spectacled owls, that have the most beautiful soft hoot you could imagine. Thanks for looking!