By noon the small low had sunk southwards over the North Sea, its fronts avoiding Beenham. Stats: Overnight low 3C, high 15C, rainfall 0, thickness 536dam (00z).

Well, today brought a change from the normal overcast skies or rain that have accompanied me to Beenham. Previously it's been mainly overcast or even drizzling, but this morning bought a pleasant northerly and Arctic air, with the odd small cumulus dotted around. It was about 10C as I set off, heading westwards to see the wolves.

It was a pretty uneventful journey, although both the windspeed and cloud cover decreased as I forged into Berkshire and onwards to the Trust. As I drove down to the secondary carpark, I was accompanied by Alba and Lunca, who seem to have a great time chasing cars (and no, I didn't take a picture).

After cutting my thumb while installing a DVD drive in \\Kenai, the Trust's visitor centre PC, it was time to go out and do some cleaning - once again, I chose Kodiak & Kenai's enclosure. Just like last time, one of them had pee'd in exactly the same spot, and that stuff is pretty strong. The Sun was also pretty strong, and I could feel it searing my skin as I swept rivulets of dirty water away with a broom. Thankfully, my strategy of nipping into the shade seemed to ward off any sunburn, as I wanted to use suncream only as a last resort (due to wolves using smell as the main way to identify people). It only took 40 minutes or so to sweep out the soiled straw and give everything a good scrubbing, then it was time to go back to the main activity, watching wolves!

They howled on the way back, a mournful sounding wail echoing over the fields - and interestingly, Latea and Lunca were not joining in, and Alba, enjoying the sun, decided to howl while laying down. It's times like this I really wish I had a zoom lens!

The cumulus was building up a little more, which was good news for me - and with a gentle northerly breeze, it didn't actually feel too bad, with air temperatures around 13C.

After howling, the Europeans had a great rallying session in front of us all, with plenty of growling, biting (for show, it doesn't draw blood) and general playfulness....

Alba also had a good sniff around as well - quite possibly he could smell Kodiak and Kenai's scent on me, but who knows for sure?

After some lunch, it was time to prepare for the walk. No, I didn't get to go on it this time around, but I did get to stroke Dakota through the fence! Here we have pictures first of Duma, then Dakota - note how scawny their tails look, as they've shed their winter fur there. Elsewhere on their bodies, there are still remnants, and small wisps of fur were seen to drift around as the wolves passed.

They were then taken out and lead onto their wolf trailer, complete with "Warning: these animals may bite!" stickers.

That left me alone at the trust, so I thought - and by now the Europeans were sensibly lying low in the heat of the day:

However, when I went down to Kodiak and Kenai's enclosure, I got a shock - I was expecting to put out some straw bedding, but my plans were thwarted by Kodiak, who was about to be walked by the only person who can handle him. So, I got to see what he's like with his friends - he growled non stop, even though he was wagging his tail...

Meanwhile, Kenai herself has lost her blue patch, although her absess wound is still there. She'll probably need another dose, which means diverting her attention with hotdog sausages!

As an aside, Duma and Dakota had another suprise for us today - they were lactating, in a phantom pregnancy. Indeed, they'd dug a massive hole in one part of their enclosure, suggesting for all the world they were making a den.

After grabbing copious amounts of fluffy, soft discarded fur, it was time to head back to Kent, with a few spots of rain as I drove through Surrey. Beyond that, the skies were clear, as is the case as I'm writing this.

Stay tuned for the next installment, coming next Sunday - although as I'll be fixing PCs, I doubt there'll be as many pictures of wolves!