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August 2007

The four main stated aims of The Hawk Conservancy Trust are Conservation, Education, Rehabilitation and Research, as can be seen on all our documentation including the pages of this website. Summer is when the research work that goes on at The Trust increases to the extent that it is happening in every corner of the park.

The reason for the increase in research at this time of year is partly down to the number of young wild birds that come to our hospital and are released once old enough to fend for themselves, but also because it is when there is a sufficiency of students who want to gain experience in their fields of study.

Every year we receive a varying number of Tawny owl chicks which have to be reintroduced to the wild and this year is a bumper one, with about 30 of them currently residing in different aviaries; some being foster reared by owls of other species, some in a crèche aviary, some in hospital bays. This is the third year that a group of researchers, headed up by Amy King, have come to the Trust and are resident for 6 weeks while they track and monitor the owls in the nearby woodlands in which they have been released.

Laura Keighley is working on a project in conjunction with Scientific Officer Campbell Murn, studying some of the Trust’s owls within their aviaries. The title of her study, “Response of owls to playback calls: enrichment or just annoying?”, involves looking at the potential role of audio stimulation to five different species, to assess whether it could be used as an enrichment technique for owls.

Another student, from France, Ludovic Jégousse is also working for Campbell, studying the birds in the hospital bays, using the new technology we have recently received from Arqiva in the form of surveillance cameras, to monitor their behaviours. His study, entitled “Effects of human presence or absence on rehabilitating raptors”, is using the CCTV cameras to observe the reaction of hospital patients to people coming and going from the building.

Members will be able to read more about these two projects from Campbell in the next edition of Hawk Talk.

Finally, falconer Jane Robertson and yours truly, who are both in the middle of a Foundation Science Degree in Zoo Resource Management based at Sparsholt College, are carrying out behavioural studies on the African White-headed vultures and the White-tailed Sea eagles respectively and will also be embarking on enrichment projects in the near future.

So if you are visiting us and see one or other member of staff or a student lurking outside aviaries or hiding in nearby bushes with clipboards, binoculars etc, you will know why!

Lou Richie, Editor

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