Regular volunteers at the Hawk Conservancy tend to agree that working here can become an addiction. I number among a group who would happily spend all our free time on the park, in fact we are probably all secretly thinking that moving to the local village of Amport would make life much easier; some of us travel fair distances to get our regular fix!

It all started when I arranged to meet up with a friend who was escorting a Brownie group to the Hawk Conservancy, and I brought along my (then one year old) daughter for the day. As a private pilot and with military flying connections, I had been to many an air show, but I thought that watching birds fly could never be as exciting as, say, the Red Arrows. How wrong I was. I left the park that day with my head spinning from what I had seen...the Peregrine stooping at incredible speeds towards the lure, eagles soaring in the valley, owls and kites flying inches above our heads, having to duck for vultures. After which I told all my friends that if they wanted to see a real flying display they should forget Farnborough, the Hawk Conservancy was the place to go. I became a member soon after that and eventually, once my daughter started full time school, I plucked up the courage to ask about volunteer work.

My first day was in April 2002, I remember it well. I helped Campbell in the hospital, cleaning out and papering the bays (they were empty at the time of course).

I was really happy just to be given two buckets and a scrubbing brush and to spend the whole day cleaning water bowls in aviaries, or scrubbing tables and benches - it made me feel I was doing something useful without being too much of a liability. I have to say though that I was somewhat nervous of many of the birds then; even a Barn Owl looked pretty ferocious and I was in awe of the way the falconers handled birds with such dexterity and calmness.

A particularly steep learning curve in the beginning was remembering which cup belonged to whom and what they wanted in it, when it came to making coffee and tea at break time. However I soon mastered that particular skill. The first time I was furnished with a ‘walkie-talkie’ radio to carry around was a day to be proud of; you feel you have truly been accepted once you can be trusted with such a fine piece of technology.

Preparing for the 'spot the bird' competition

These days I generally spend two days a week at the park, helping out on Activity Days, cleaning bays and aviaries, painting, taking people on tours of the hospital, helping at the flying displays, making the coffees, editing this magazine, whatever I’m asked to do really. One of my more bizarre tasks recently was to set up a fun ‘name the species’ competition with our ‘static’ birds, for a group of police wildlife crime prevention officers who were at the park for a training day (see photo).

They say it takes an average of three years to train a raptor, but fifteen to train a falconer. Since that’s assuming the falconer is working at it full time, by my reckoning and given the number of hours I put in, I would be somewhere in my 90’s before I could count myself among that elite group!