My wife Elizabeth and I have always had an interest in wildlife, animals and especially birds. Having found out about the Hawk Conservancy we first visited in 2004 whilst on holiday in the area. We came back in 2005 a few times; the friendly atmosphere and the amazing flying displays made us want to join as members after a visit in September. We were then asked “now you two are members, would you be interested in coming to the next members work day?”. Not really knowing what we were letting ourselves in for, we agreed.

Along with the other members who we soon made friends with, we grafted all day long with various back breaking tasks including digging trenches, shoveling tons of gravel, and lugging railway sleepers around the park to improve the hawk & eagle mews. It was hard work, but at the end of the day it was rewarding knowing we had helped to make the birds’ surroundings even better for them.

As we were new members, during the day Andy Hinton introduced himself and thanked us for coming down. Having seen that we had enjoyed ourselves he asked would we like to come again and help build an aviary. As a maintenance engineer by trade, I was able to make some good suggestions on how to build the aviary, hence we were able with the help of others to achieve a lot during the day. The only problem is we were not able to finish the aviary in that day and I hate leaving a job half done, so we were told why not come down anytime you like, and as any help is appreciated.

The rest as they say is history; over the next couple of years we made regular visits to the park to help out any way we could. This started from doing odd jobs around the park helping the staff, to putting up what seems like miles of fencing, progressing to, “here is a pile of materials, can you design & build us this ….?” One of these projects was the Burrowing Owl aviary.

One of my favorite projects was the woodland flying arena as I was involved in this right from the start. From leveling the site, to preparing the seating area with tons of bark chips and positioning the new benches, to putting up fencing and gates around the arena, to landscaping & final finishing touches to make the arena usable. Then later in the year making improvements to the arena, by trimming some trees & moving some perches and posts used during the flying display by the owls. This allowed the owls better flight paths through the trees and over the audience. It is nice to sit and watch the woodland display and hear peoples’ comments on what a lovely arena it is.

We don’t spend all of our time working, as we like nothing more than just to sit and watch the flying displays, or treat ourselves to an Owls by Moonlight evening, or a flying day where we can get really close to the birds. Talking to other volunteers and staff, we are often asked, “why do come you down to the Hawk Conservancy Trust so much as you do?” As we live on the Norfolk/Suffolk border we do have a long journey each time we visit. There is a simple answer - we feel at home here.