The Accipiter - Online magazine from The Hawk Conservancy Trust

November 2005

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...

October has been a lovely month weather-wise and Monica Johnson has painted a wonderful picture of the autumnal feel in the wildflower meadow in this month’s Meadow Muses. It has been a relaxed time for visitors, as is usually the case at this time of year, but warm and dry enough to bring in respectable numbers most days.

In theory the staff should also be able to change down a gear, however for various reasons it is just as busy for them as it is during the high season. For one thing there are fewer helpers around as work experience and research students are back at college, so the day-to-day jobs such as cleaning aviaries and bays and changing the birds’ water once more falls to the individual falconer on his or her section of the park.

The falconers are also busy with training new birds that were either born on the park this summer or have come from other collections or breeders. Training initially takes place after the public have all left at the end of the day, then it moves on to being included in our flying displays. When it comes to displays, this is the best time of year for the birds to be introduced as the audience numbers tend to be small and of the genteel variety (by which I mean not many children!), which is less stressful for the birds than being immediately introduced to a large group of people. We always think it is rather nice for the audiences to be able to see what training is all about, and to have been there to see individual birds’ achievements, and while talking during displays about training techniques it is a good time to stress that we try to teach individual birds to show what they would naturally do in the wild, so each bird is trained to display differently, according to its particular capabilities.

A group comprising staff and volunteers have been in the Kimberley area of South Africa on a project to capture, tag and re-release African White-back Vulture chicks. Now is also a time of year when staff can take their holidays, having all had to be around during the high season. As the park has still been open to visitors during this time, there has been a ‘skeleton’ staff on most days to manage all the usual activities such as flying displays and Activity Days, as well as covering for the absent staff, so it certainly has not been a particularly relaxing or quiet period for those remaining!

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