Wagtail Winner + Haiti & a Hawk

The winner of the Wagtail Competition is Tony Dillon (pictured) of "Dillon Projects" in St. Helens, Merseyside. Well done Tony, the newest 14" & 18" Wagtail Whirlwinds are winging there way to you tomorrow. Watch out in the next few days on this blog for another chance to win some Wagtails. Thanks to all that entered. Don't forget the other two competitions running at the moment for the set of ladder-twins & Marks "window cleaning skills" DVD.

Friends of Eddie Perry are celebrating the good news they received after wondering about the fate of the Columbia man who was visiting Haiti when an earthquake devastated the country Jan. 12. Perry, 50, owner of Atlas Window Cleaning, was in Haiti doing volunteer work at an orphanage in the Haiti countryside. Damon Greenfield, a friend of Perry’s who often joined him on his trips to Haiti, said he went by Perry’s home on Monday. “I couldn’t track down his family. He has two sisters who are married and I didn’t know their married names,” Greenfield said. When he went to his friend’s house, a neighbor came over to report that Perry had been able to call from Haiti and was safe. “They had no food and water for five days, but he was able to get to someone with a phone and let people know he was OK,” Greenfield said. “We are so thankful for this good news.” Perry is scheduled to return from Haiti Jan. 28.
The good news received by Perry’s friends has not been universal, however, as images from Haiti continued to circulate, showing the aftermath caused by the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that hit the Caribbean country, killing an estimated 200,000 people injuring another 250,000. A powerful aftershock shook the city early on Wednesday, although it was not immediately clear what additional damage or injuries it caused.

Hawk hired to scare off Holyrood pigeons flies away for good: Tweed, a Harris hawk, who was drafted in at a cost of £44,000 to scare pigeons away from the Holyrood building, has gone AWOL. He is understood to have moved to Salisbury Crags, near the parliament. Since its completion in 2004, the £400 million parliament building has been plagued by dozens of pigeons, which roost in the air-conditioning vents and on window ledges. The clean-up bill for the mess left by the "winged vermin" runs into tens of thousands of pounds every year. See here & article near bottom here.

But yesterday, the parliamentary authorities were forced to admit that one of the their birds of prey, which they hoped would end the problem, had apparently given up the fight and flown off.
It was unclear whether, after six and a half months of effort, the eight-month-old hawk had got fed up of the edict that prevented him from actually killing any pigeons. The ruling was imposed as a condition of the hawks, work to make sure visiting schoolchildren were not upset. The deal to bring in the hawks was secured last year by NBS Bird and Pest Solutions after other moves, including relocating some pigeons to Ayrshire, had failed.

Since last summer, Tweed and his fellow birds of prey have been seen several times a week flying over Holyrood. A Scottish Parliament spokeswoman said yesterday: "Regrettably, one of our contractor's hawks has gone missing. "However, this does not affect the cost or conditions with the contractor who supplies this service. "The falconry contract is helping us deal with our pigeon problem and seven other birds of prey continue to be flown at Holyrood. "In the long term, we fully expect to see a reduction in the money we spend on external cleaning as a result of pigeons being deterred from the parliament building."

In a report before the decision was made, parliament officials warned, under a section headed "The Risks", that they had assessed the use of three different birds, a red-tailed hawk, a Harris hawk and a Saker falcon, and said: "Both hawks were successful in flying to high points. "The red tail was good at getting into some of the nooks and crannies, but often had problems on landing, failing to stop, and on one occasion flew into the windows of the members' restaurant." However, the report failed to identify the possibility of Tweed going native.