Hello all,
Just a quickie before we break up for the festive period.
The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed Chris and I filling the web-cam feeder yesterday afternoon, in preparation for the festive break. You may also have noticed the really badly-timed rope disintegrating! It turns out it was completely rotten and despite our best efforts in the fading light, we couldn't re-secure it. Fibres just kept falling out of it, till there wasn't enough length in it to re-attach it anywhere, either with nails or with cable ties. It needs replacing, which obviously we're not going to be able to do for some time. Apologies - we know the birds often queue up on it and the squirrels sit on it, but after several attempts, we had to admit defeat and accept that there was nothing we could do about it in the gathering gloom yesterday.
Here at Abernethy, we close-up shop from close of play on Thursday (ie tomorrow) and return to work during the first week of January, though some folk aren't back till Monday 8 Jan. I'm afraid if something goes wrong with the webcam, it's unlikely that we'll be able to rectify it, as folk will be spending much-needed time with family and friends, and may even be away for Christmas and Hogmanay. If a problem does occur, we'll put it right as soon as we can on our return, but please bear with us in the event of a technical hitch. At least the birds and squirrels will have enough peanuts to see them through to the new year!
Unfortunately, our internet is so poor at the moment, that I can't check whether you'll be able to read the notice Chris valiantly put up from the other side of the tree yesterday...but just in case, on behalf of all of us here at RSPB Abernethy, I'd like to thank you for your never-wavering enthusiasm and support over the past year and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year. Look after yourselves and we'll see you in 2018.
Ho ho ho!
Jess