In the Beginning (Vol. 1)

In 1992 my daughter decided that she wanted to work with animals and so, unbeknown to me, this was to be the start of a long association with the Hawk Conservancy Trust. It was not however as simple as you might imagine. She decided to attend a local Agricultural College and when their first half term arose, like most children she arrived home with an animal that needed looking after whilst the college was closed.

Having had three daughters I was well used to the school gold fish or guinea pig spending its holiday with us. I was not however prepared for what arrived. It was a Buzzard!

"Leah" - Common Buzzard

I have to say that up until then, to me, raptors were nasty vicious creatures that were likely to rip you to pieces or carry off babies from prams.

“We can’t keep that”, I exclaimed, maintaining a healthy distance between it and myself. “We don’t even have an aviary”. “Oh it’s alright” my daughter said, “we can tether it to a perch on the lawn during the day and put it in the shed at night”. “Tether a bird, how ridiculous” I exclaimed, “that’s cruel”, although looking at it staring at me, tethering seemed an excellent option.

“Don’t worry”, she said, “the college said that if we weren’t sure what to do we could go to a place called the Hawk Conservancy and they would advise us”.

So next day off we went - and this was to be my fist meeting with Reg Smith. Those of you who had the privilege of meeting Reg will know that he didn’t suffer fools gladly, and when asked for advice, having listened to my pleas, he told me in no uncertain terms just what to do - basically “take the bl***y thing back”, as we had no right keeping it when we knew nothing about it. “If you’re interested in birds then come here, sit, listen and learn” was his advice.

He was, of course, right. So back it went, much to the annoyance of both my daughter and the college lecturer, who now had to come to college each day during half term to care for it. For the next few months I visited the Conservancy on several occasions, and I quickly learned that it was far cheaper to join as a member and then I could come and go as often as I liked.

"Amy" - Lugger Falcon

The defining moment for me was on one warm summer’s day when I was watching the 12 o’ clock display. They were flying Amy (a Lugger Falcon). As the display progressed she started to ring up and climb higher and higher. At last she was just a speck hardly visible in a white cloud. As I strained to watch, the falconer produced the lure. For several seconds I cold not make out what she was doing, it looked as if the speck was just getting slightly bigger. It suddenly dawned on me, and indeed the rest of the audience, that we were watching something special. She was stooping back to earth at an incredible pace. I could not believe what was happening. Surely she would slow up soon. Like a bullet she came down over the audience to deftly catch the lure that was expertly thrown into the air. It took several seconds for us all to realise what had happened. The rest of the day was a bit of a blur and my mind kept returning to what I had seen that morning. I have no doubt that it was this experience that got me hooked. I had never witnessed any thing like it before. I just had to find out more about these incredible creatures.

Working for the Government meant that the job I was doing had a number of unsocial hours and thus some free time during the week. I soon became a regular visitor at the park. I have to say that I was really impressed with the friendliness of the staff. Wherever I went, there was always someone close by to answer my questions. It was much later on I found out that this was because Ashley had been misinformed that I worked for the Inland Revenue (definitely not true) and he wanted a member of staff to keep an eye on me! Arriving each day in a suit with collar and tie probably didn’t help.

A close shave - commentating can be dangerous

Over the ensuing months I came to assist with many of the day-to-day jobs of cleaning aviaries and water bowls, car park duty and general maintenance.

Shortly after, I happened to mention that in my youth I did a bit of photography. As a result I immediately became “volunteered for” as the Park Photographer.

As time has progressed so have the number of jobs I have undertaken. As well as photography, I now regularly commentate on the displays, Owls by Torchlight (OBT) evenings, and the Vulture Restaurant as well as conducting tours of the Bird of Prey Hospital.

Activity Day

In addition, I help to run Activity Days, give tractor and trailer rides to children and have even represented the Park at a local all girls school fete (sad to say they were much more interested in Avon, the Barn Owl I took along, than in me).

Other notable, or should that be notorious, events have included being Father Christmas on an OBT, a ghost on Halloween evenings, as well as a ferret handler dressed as a serf in sack cloth and ashes on a medieval themed weekend. There was even once talk about donning a vulture costume and wandering up and down the A303 (it didn’t materialise I’m pleased to say). One can never get bored at the Hawk Conservancy Trust.