A light northerly flow covers the UK with a ridge from the north bringing cool, dry air. Conditions at 12z (1PM BST): Thickness, 553dam, temperature 18C (dewpoint 7C). Wind from the north, 12 MPH. Sunday's high, 20C, Saturday night's low 9C (source: MetO, the 12z GFS and NOAA).

Yesterday dawned clear and calm, with a heavy dew on the grass. It was exceptionally cool for August, with a minimum of just 8.9C - something not usually seen for another month down here! The skies remained largely clear for much of my journey westwards, something that took a little longer than normal due to the vast number of holidaymakers around.

By the time I arrived in Beenham some cloud was bubbling up and moving in from the north, with temperatures around 13C. There was no cleaning to be done, instead we all went into one of the enclosures (without wolves) and raked up grass that had been cut by a tractor the previous day. Enroute I said a quick "hello" to the Euros:


Lunca and Latea

We had some large aluminium rakes which made things much easier than I'm used to - far more efficient than the little garden rake I have at home. While we were raking two buzzards circled nearby:


View to the west, Beenham, 0843z

As usual there was a walk scheduled and we all headed back to the Obs Room for our safety briefing. Once that was out of the way I set off to meet the visitors in the woods, to help with spraying their shoelaces with "bitter apple" (which is supposed to discourage the wolves from investigating people's shoelaces - they like dangly things!) Most of the visitors had arrived early, with a couple of exceptions - however, the walk started without them. I was on car watch duty when they eventually turned up, having misread the start time for the walk. Once my replacement for watching the cars arrived I escorted them through the woods and met up with the wolves at the half-way point.


Duma in the woods


Dakota getting some attention while the walkers receive a talk about wolves and the Trust.

Not long after that is the part where the wolves go swimming in the lake - this time I didn't join them, instead staying the other side to take this picture:


Duma in the lake

Wolves are pretty observant creatures and you can see in the picture that Duma's noticed I've left the pack - she's watching me with interest.

The walk came to an end soon after and everyone returned to the wolf centre.


Duma back at the Trust, eyeing up one of the visitors

As I didn't handle on the walk I was offered the chance to take Dakota out while another volunteer had his training walk - needless to say I didn't need much encouragement! As a non dog owner I'm still getting used to putting collars onto the wolves, something that's second nature for most folks. It didn't take long though and soon after we set off around the fields, with Duma and Dakota not paying much attention to the Euros as we walked past their enclosure. The walk went well, but it was sweltering in that hot sunshine!

Once D&D had been returned to their kennels it was time to head for home, as I suspected the roads would be busier than normal. Sadly I was proved right as I crawled around the M25, which was chock-a-block with people no doubt coming back from holidays.

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