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December 2007

There have been such big changes in certain areas of The Hawk Conservancy Trust since the winter season began, you wouldn’t recognise the place.
Morris the tree surgeon has been with us once again for his usual winter stint, beginning in the car park where our ‘ethnic cleansing’ regime against the dreaded leylandii trees continued, and they were dropping like skittles. The hospital is now much more visible from the car park as a result.
Then Jack’s shed, which for years had been used for storing things like timber and was well past it’s use by date, came down to make room for the new staff room, which arrived the very next day and is now up and running.
Now the new staff room is Ashley’s latest pride and joy, not least because he’s very pleased with himself at having found such a bargain; the fact that it almost literally fell off the back of a lorry is a story I will now recount to you. The room is actually a large, wooden-clad mobile home-type caravan, complete with lace curtains and comfortable built-in sofa benches, which came from a caravan park in the West Country and arrived (or almost arrived) on a low loader. The first problem was that it was too tall to fit under the railway bridge between the A303 and the Trust. So it had to be offloaded from the low loader the other side of the bridge and was then attached by its tow bar to the back of the land cruiser. The next problem was its width, which by sheer good luck was exactly the same as the width of the lane (give or take a branch or two). So Baz the digger driver towed the beast down the lane at anything between stopped and a very stately walking pace, complete with police escort, Ash and Campbell doing the ping pong bat bit at the front, and Sam and Andy pushing from the back – well they had to at least be allowed to think they were doing something useful. It was quite a spectacular operation, which took most of an afternoon to execute. But well worth it since now we can all sit comfortably during our break times.
Meanwhile, elsewhere lots of other things are happening. The black kite aviary is being rebuilt; it will be larger and taller, incorporating a pollarded tree for perching. Nearby in the meadow flying arena, the seating area is being expanded into a tiered system, to make best use of the mound behind the current seats.
Weekend opening is proving popular, the (until recently) dry weather and Gemma’s Sunday roasts both being a great help. Training of young birds also continues to go well; more of that in future issues.
We hope you all have a very Happy Christmas and look forward to your continued support and visits to the Trust in 2008.

Lou Richie, Editor

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