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September 2008

As usual the summer holidays have swept by us, not in the hoped-for heat haze, but more in the sort of raging tempest that is usually associated with autumn. Maybe summer and autumn will do a swap and September will prove kinder.

However, the inclement weather has not dampened our spirits or our ever widening range of summer activities. Shining Bear arrived early in August with his Sun Lodge teepee and spent a week entertaining adults and children alike with stories, music (including a didgeridoo which the children were invited to play) and general fun twice daily round the camp fire.

Two students arrived to spend the holidays on research projects at the Trust. Eleanor Warren-Thomas studied the residents in three of our aviaries when they were given live insects as an alternative food source for environmental enrichment purposes. The ways in which these foods were presented involved some ingenious devices. You can read the details of Eleanor’s study in the Research section of the Accipiter this month. At the same time, Anastarsia Kelly has been researching the diets of some of our display species, monitoring them during display to assess the amount of work they do daily and keeping meticulous details of what and how much they are fed daily. She has also written a brief piece in this month’s Research section. We look forward to seeing the final write-ups of both these studies in the months to come. Additionally, the annual tawny owl release has been monitored by research assistant Judy Wrighte this year.

Meanwhile, the hospital has continued in its role as nursery for the many young birds that have been born around the Trust. Some of them are still too young to start training yet while others are now free-flying around the grounds, such as four of the young Harris’ Hawks which are already being used on our experience days, with guests assisting in the training of these birds.

Next month a group of us will be off to South Africa for the annual pilgrimage to work with Mark Anderson on projects including the monitoring of the local African White-backed Vulture population. Look out for reports of the trip in future issues.

Lou Richie, Editor

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