Life in the trees!

Climbing trees, hanging out in trees, sleeping in my hammock at height: this is all trumped by working on our amazing raptors which often pick some pretty interesting places to access! This buzzard nest was relatively easy to access, hand throw of the throw-line, pull the rope up and through, climb SRT on two prusiks, up and out of the thronging, thick midge-infested ground zone (another benefit of being up high!) and lanyards to the top.

And down again.

On the other hand, this tree, a fantastic big pine with a raven nest in it's crown, was a real scunner to access as the perfect TIP was blocked by all kinds of twigs and pegs and dead branches. A mild case of throwline spaghetti after I hit the perfect window but triple wrapped a branch on the way down, stuck. So I settled for the main fork at 10m with the access line, and then lanyard it up to the nest 6m up (arrow).

This was back in April and in the nest were two fine, well-grown raven pulli. They were lowered down to be ringed and biometrics taken. Minutes later they were returned to their nest and I abseiled out of there - what a great morning!

Thanks to photographers Megan Layton and Emily Trevail!