What an interesting day. We knew that Judy Leden and Chris Dawes were coming here with a camera crew from Blue Peter to film a peregrine falcon taking a lure from a flying hang glider, so we sauntered up to the Long Mynd early to have a nose around. We haven’t seen Chris and Judy for ages, so it was nice to catch up. Judy explained to us what they were hoping to do and how it all worked and we got to meet the peregrine, Lucy, who was the same bird which starred in the Ultimate Predator series. Judy was going to fly tandem with Joel, one of the Blue Peter presenters, and there would be cameras rigged up on the glider, as well as on the bird.

I thought that the day was going to be blown out for paragliders, but we found that it was flyable when we arrived and Dave B. was in the air. He wasn’t getting very high, but I got my kit out, only to find it had picked up too much once the sun came out. Geoff rigged the hang glider and had a nice flight – strong thermals, and not too rough higher up. Judy needed to be able to fly lower to be able to fly with the peregrine, and it got very windy and lifty, so she had to stand down the crew until later.

Meanwhile, Kai, Mick and Glyn had arrived. It occasionally gusted through to 26mph, but the sky was fantastic and you could see Kai was really wrestling with his desire to fly versus his concern for safety. In the end, Glyn and he talked themselves into it. Glyn got off fine, and then a few minutes later Kai got hoofed off his feet and disappeared over the back within minutes. Glyn flew for a while, but got blown back while trying to land and reported having some anxious moments in the air. Kai got to the Clee Hills and landed there in howling winds, somewhat regretting having taken off in the first place.

Geoff flew again, but said it was horribly rough, so he packed up and we went to archery. At 4pm a hoard of kids turned up, so we headed back up to the Long Mynd, to find that Judy and Joel made it into the air. They had done one shot of the peregrine taking the lure, and were hoping for another. They released the bird, but Judy was getting too high, so Lucy had to fly a long way to catch them. Instead of just taking the lure, she landed on the base bar and hitched a ride with them for a few minutes, before jumping off, taking the food with her. Should be stunning footage.

They landed elated, although Joel the presenter felt a little air sick. Really interesting to watch it all going on. It never did drop off enough by the time we wanted to go home. Oh, and we finally managed to present Stewart Toon with his trophy for ‘Best new LMSC HG pilot’ for 2009. Well done Stewart!

See photos of today.

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