Ashley with Fagin

This year’s theme for names at the Trust is outlaws and thieves, and it seems that hooded vulture Fagin will steal a few visitors' hearts this season.

It is difficult to sex hooded vultures without using blood analysis, but Andy and Ashley took an educated guess, based on size and colouring, to try to make up 3 pairs of birds. They also decided to take a selection of adult and sub-adult birds; this is easier to see as young hooded vultures have black head feathers, which get paler as they get older. Soon the birds were placed in their travel boxes and long drive home to the Trust began.

Vet John Chitty checked all of the arrivals

On arrival in Andover, all of the vultures were given a health check by our vet John Chitty, which included taking swabs and blood samples. The birds' ring numbers were noted and registered in our database, before they were moved to their new home. The birds settled in well, and soon became a star attraction after their journey was featured in the BBC's Inside Out programme. Sadly it turns out that our educated guess was a little awry, as the blood tests revealed one female and five males amongst the six birds.

It soon became apparent that the birds would not be able to be returned to the wild and, due to the number of males, there was only the possibility of one breeding pair. It was decided that, to enrich the birds lives, they would be trained to fly in demonstration and permission was sought and gained from EAZA to do this. The birds were watched to see if any of them had made an attachment, and when a pair was selected, the other four began their training.

Cedric holds Fagin for his medical check

Each of the four birds was assigned two falconers for their training, and Ashley and Jane took on the trainers' roles for Fagin. Ashley particularly choose this bird as he was a sub-adult and would have been an experienced bird in the wild, and so would likely be more difficult to train. In fact this has not been the case, and the younger birds have proved to be the more difficult. As with all young birds the hardest part of training is the first part, manning. Ashley and Jane spent many hours sitting in the mews with Fagin on their fist. Once the bird trusted them enough to eat from their glove, they moved on to socialize him with other people. Fagin became a regular at coffee break, and seemed quite at home on the patio. As his training began over the closed period, and the quieter time over Christmas it meant that a lot more hours have been able to put into him, and this can quiet clearly be seen. He is an extremely nice natured bird, who has never once pecked anyone. He is also extremely bright, only having to be shown something once before picking it up. He took to flying free very quickly, and was not worried about being flown to any of the falconers' fists. Then Ashley had to get him used to other people, not just those dressed in the falconer's recognizable uniform. So the office staff were called into duty, and all trotted up to the flying grounds to have a go at flying him.

Jane helping to train Fagin

Once he was settled into this routine, and the time came to introduce him to the public, the quieter winter weekends allowed guests on activity days the chance to help with his training. It has been love at first sight, especially if they have had the opportunity to feel the soft feathers on the top of his head, where the name hooded vulture comes from, as it feels like fur fabric. His training has gone from strength to strength, and the four birds have made a couple of appearances during displays when the conditions have been perfect. It is hoped that this season they will become regulars not only on the experience sessions, but flying together in the Valley of the Eagles.