A Few More Windmill Pics From Cy

Hi Leonard

On Friday night and Saturday I was out and about and I took some pictures for you.

Picture one and two were taken at Boyndie old aerodrome Friday evening. The windmills operate at nearly at sea level. These windmills are 15 minutes from my home. Picture one shows the seven windmills from a distance and picture two shows a single windmill at sunset with the cattle being totally unaffected by its presence.

I travelled to Aberdeen yesterday, one and a half hour drive, (to pick up my German niece, who is staying with us this weekend). Pictures three, four show a similar windmill layout proposed for Mt Tom ridge,. They were photographed on my southward trip. Picture five and six are of the same windmills on my northern return trip. This hill ridge is at the highest point of Banffshire, The Braes of Foundland.

All of the windmills (and there are more) are in agreed designated sites and by and large are accepted as necessary, however, there is a spot of controversy at the moment regarding a new site, as the power companies want to put some deep in a valley which relies on tourism, on the Whisky Trail.

Regards

Cy Pirie

Mt.Tom In The Near Future?

An excerpt of a recent e-mail from my dear friend Cy in Moray, Scotland.

The pictures give us a glimpse of what Mt.Tom may look like in the future.

" Hi Leonard

Kath and I are back from our holiday in the English Lakes/Scottish Borders. I thought of you as I drove northwards through a valley and stopped the car to take the attached pics. The windmills are on an isolated hillside near Kendal in England. They show the type of windmill favoured by the Power Companies in this country to generate electricity which is added to the National Grid. I walked from the car and struck up a conversation with a man who had parked his camper van and who was drying his sodden walking gear. We commented on the silence of the wilderness all around us. The windmills were eerily quiet and to be frank were strangely beautiful. I thought you might be interested in them, as something along similar lines is proposed for your Mt Tom? "

Birds Of Prey Exhibition At Mt.Tom State Reservation

Elder Field at the Mt. Tom State Reservation was the site of a Birds Of Prey exhibition by Tom Ricardi who has had a lifetime career in wildlife law enforcement and education and a vocation helping injured raptors recover, return to the wild, or live out their lives in comfort in captivity.

Ricardi, who retired from the Massachusetts Department Of Fish and Wildlife in 2001,

operates the non-profit Massachusetts Birds Of Prey Rehabilitation Center in Conway Ma., where he cares for more than a dozen varieties of raptors, including owls, hawks, and falcons, and breeding bald eagles in captivity so their chicks can be released into the wild.

Here are a few varieties of birds and owls on display Sunday:

Peregrine Falcon

Barn Owl

Turkey Vulture

Golden Eagle

Ricardi does most of the work himself, feeding, cleaning cages, collecting sticks for the birds to build nests, and bringing birds to local schools for educational talks.

"There are a lot of rules and regulations, and it is quite a bit of work, but I love it," Ricardi says. "The best thing is, when I go to a school, I usually get letters back from the kids. That's exciting, especially when I go to a school in a big city. A lot of the kids have never been in contact with wildlife at all, let alone a bald eagle. I love to share this with the kids."