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.

Hurricane Gustav, Hanna & Tropical Depression Nine

Hurricane Gustav is the seventh tropical cyclone, third hurricane and second major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. It formed on the morning of August 25, 2008 about 260 miles (420 km) southeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and rapidly strengthened into a tropical storm that afternoon and into a hurricane early on August 26. Later that day it made landfall near the Haitian town of Jacmel. As of August 31, 88 deaths have been attributed to Gustav in the Caribbean. On September 1 at 9:30 a.m CDT (1430 UTC) the center of Gustav made landfall in the United States along the Louisiana coast near Cocodrie as a Category 2 hurricane.

If the floodwaters rise and trap him in his home by the Mississippi River levee, carpenter Juan LeBoeuf plans to bust out through the roof with a knife. Bar owner Joann Guidos has a cache of guns to protect her place from looters who roam a city emptied by evacuations ahead of Hurricane Gustav. Window cleaner Julio Iglesia, who plans to stay in his rented home a block from the mighty Mississippi, is putting his faith in God. They have been through the horrors of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, losing houses and health in the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.Yet they refuse to move under an evacuation order less than 24 hours before another dangerous hurricane is expected to make landfall down the watery coast. "Katrina was here, but God won't let that happen again," said Iglesia. For a few, the choice to stay is a calculation not based on recklessness. During Katrina, Guidos' Kajun's Pub stayed open, business boomed and the bar became something of a local landmark as well as a community center. The worst part was the looting, not the foot (30 cm) of water on the bar floor. Guidos has a pistol, a knife and an assortment of guns in her house next door to the bar, including a sniper's rifle. "I haven't shot anybody yet, but if I have to, I will. You have a lot of real idiots in this city," she said. Gustav is forecast to land west of New Orleans on Monday, possibly as a Category 4 hurricane with wind speeds up to 155 mph (249 kph) and causing a 16-foot (5-metre) storm surge.

Currently as I write this blog, Gustav is only rated as a catogory 2 followed by Hanna which is currently listed as a grade 1 Hurricane & also news of another forming in the Atlantic labelled tropical depression 9. I've added this video below of the devastation caused by Gustav in Cuba. Click on the map above to follow the hurricanes.