NEWSLETTER NO 4 LATE WINTER 2009 Edited by Jemima Parry-Jones MBE
INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR BIRDS OF PREY NEWENT, GLOS, GL18 1JJ EMAIL JPJ@ICBP.ORG
WWW.ICBP.ORG
NATURE IS THE BANK ON WHICH ULTIMATELY ALL CHEQUES ARE DRAWN
OPEN FEB 1ST 2009 !!! Well amazingly we did it!! In 30 days we got the place cleared up enough, repaired enough, clean enough and just about acceptable to have birds here and to open. And its all thanks to my hard working staff and the superb efforts of the volunteers. Not all the birds are here, the large eagles and vultures and some of the hawks are still at Eardisland, but over 75% are now here. We still have to put in more perching and nesting boxes or ledges, but Our First Visitors at least they are here. My neighbours kindly put sheep in the field as the grass at the top has not been mowed since August and at the bottom for about four years I suspect, they did a reasonable job. On Jan 2nd Mick Cordell arrived and started work full time and the volunteers started to arrive. So far we have moved all the gravel out of Barn 5, taken out the plants, put the roof back on, put in the sand, painted the clad walls, and re-perched it, removed all the large gravel from the outside and hopefully fixed the running water on the path. The Kites are in there now. The Tiny Owls block has been cleared of dirty gravel, the perches removed, the walls removed as they were rotten and had to be replaced, the roof went back on (ÂŁ400 for the replacement), the sand is in, it is all re-perched painted and the nest boxes are in, the wire has been replaced with Zoomesh and it would all have been painted but the cold and snow beat us on that one! The owl courtyard has had all the dirty gravel removed, the rotten perches removed, the whole thing repainted and re-sanded. Perches are in and so are the owls, we just need to sort out the bath ledges and new
nest boxes. The five aviaries for flying birds have had the gravel removed (tons of bloody gravel!) and had been painted and re-sanded and perched, I have just found a leak in the roof which had be covered up! Barn 4 has had some of the walls reinstated, the gravel removed, the perches redone, completely repainted, re-sanded and the vultures are in. Similarly Barn 3 has been done now and the falcons and caracaras are in. We are working on the moulting aviaries as I write and the back lawn which looks like rubbish dump. We have a power washer that is cleaning all the fences from the green and black mould and the brickwork and the fronts of the aviaries, then we have to tidy up all the paths. We have not been able to do any mowing, but some great volunteers have been severely pruning the gardens which have been untouched for 14 months. We found that all the material from cleaning the aviaries has been dumped behind them so that has to be cleared. The overflow car park had junk all over it and three bonfire sites full of bits of metal, that is now down to one. The main car park had a huge dump of rubbish in the far corner which has been cleared, it has been scraped clean, but needs a new topping - that will happen once I can afford the materials. The café has had a major clean and paint, Sue and Angela have taken over, we brought all the tables and crockery from the tea shop at Eardisland as the café was bare!! Sue and Angela have brought in a whole load of equipment, it looks great, the awful old coffee and tea machine has gone and we have real coffee!! The Hawk Walk has been power-washed but otherwise apart from the smelly gravel by the weighing room which is still to be removed, it is workable. We found a whole load of rotten wood and wire in the horse field (!), now cleared, the outdoor menage has gone and we await the weather to put the land back to how it was. Nearly all the wooden fences that were put up have gone, giving us better backgrounds for the photographers and four great old stone gate posts have replaced some of the perches in the field. The small falcon block has been cleaned, but does not look good yet because it desperately needs completely reproofing as the roof has rotted out, but that will have to wait until we can afford new Onduline. Then we will Zoomesh the front which will look super and be good for the birds and photography as well. We have not even touched Barn 1 yet, barn 2 is nearly done, it looks much better and the clearing around it has made a huge difference, the guys doing it said with amazement—there is a path under there and curb stones and drainage—I know, I said!! We have redone the drainage in the field so there is no longer a swamp of dirty sewage water next to the seating!! We have also filled in the very ugly pond in the middle of the flying area and taken out all the pampas grass, so it looks clearer although the field looks pretty awful at the moment. Our tree surgeon Dave has felled a dying oak, we all stood out there to say goodbye to her, but sadly she had to go. He has also crown lifted a number of other trees which look great, and opened up the pond so we can see it again. Sadly someone had hacked, and I mean hacked, the two lovely weeping willows by the pond to a point where we could not save their shape so they have been pollarded and will I hope recover over time. A number of the trees have been treated in the same way, personally, I would like to hack at the person who did it. It is a dreadful thing to do to trees, particularly as the hacked off branches were just left on the ground, so one would wonder why do it?? We never thought we would be ready for Feb 1st because with all that to do we also had birds to deal with,
train and get flying - but we did make it and had 36 visitors on the first day which was bitterly cold!! To get to where we are now—with a long way still to go, we had between 3 and fifteen volunteers daily, with 21 on one Sunday. Gill came all the way from the west coast of Canada and stayed two weeks. We had people from Portsmouth, Yorkshire, Northants, Wales, Ireland, in fact all over the place, as well as local friends and family as well. The work was not fun, we started moving frozen gravel and rubbish out of aviaries in bitter weather, that went on for probably 10 days, then painting where the walls were not rotten, then putting in fresh sand, and new perches, none of it exciting work and they all mucked in and did it. It is amazing to see the changes, sadly I could not find the battery for my camera and so I don’t have pictures of the worst of it, and the others who took photos were going for nice shots, rather than ones showing piles of dirty gravel and rat holes!!
Before…….
Afterwards
Before…….
The birds are all Afterwards well so far, there are still 24 aviaries with birds in them at Eardisland, with Alasdair over there caring for them and taking down the holding aviaries. We aim to get these back by the end of the month as Alasdair is going to work in Japan with Gary, plus we are close to the breeding season and want to get them settled enough so some will breed. We have a new perch design in progress, which will I hope keep the walls cleaner, I designed it in South Carolina, with Ron who worked there, and we are now improving on that design in metal, it should look pretty cool and hopefully work and be good for the birds.
With a winter that we have just experienced, I want to get heated perches in the aviaries before next win-
ter, and so we are looking for help on this—all of those of you with electrical expertise—help, I have the concept, but am not sure how to expedite it. There is still a ton of work to get done, some, like the staining of the outside of the pens will be a slow ongoing process. The paths are desperately in need of some hard work to make them better for the visitors and particularly for wheel chairs, that is next on the list after getting all the birds here. Once they are done and the flats are usable again I want to redo all the outside signs, then redesign the education room. Rebuild Mozart's aviary and close in the Hawk Walk again, knock down the aviary near the loos, which is in a poor place and not very attractive. And so on and so on. The birds really are beginning to fly very well, the falcons seem to have managed with a four year break and still get fit very quickly. The African Peregrine that Simon has been training is fairly whipping around the field. Hemp the Eurasian Eagle Owl is being very good. The Ferruginous Buzzard that was given to us is coming on, we still have work to do with him, but he is showing potential. I hope to get some Kites out in Mid March, once we have all the birds here. Treasure the Secretary Bird is coming home again soon. Ashley Smith from the Hawk Conservancy has been caring for her for me, and she and another one will be back soon, although I doubt I will work her again as she is getting on now. Jan and Ann are going to visit the Hawk Conservancy soon, we desperately need to get the shop w i t h m o r e stuff and so they are going to see what sells and where to get it. We have a second Eurasian Griffon Vulture egg, the first one sadly failed, but we have hopes for this one, I would love to fly one here. A pair of Long-eared Owls has arrived, which is nice to see, and we desperately need to get nest boxes in for all the owls, but have not had the time to build them yet. My constant comment about jobs, is either—help we need to get it done now, or—no it is not a priority!! But each day we move forward, sometimes very slowly and sometimes in leaps and bounds. Winning the lottery would help, but we get there slowly. My heartfelt thanks and gratitude goes to both my staff who are working very hard under trying conditions, and the volunteers who constantly amaze me with the amount of time, enthusiasm and help they are giving us, it really is wonderful. Thank you all
The Great Move Back The final completion date ended up being December 18th, so from then until New Year’s Eve I brought over a load of my belongings every day except Christmas day and the 30th. 13 loads later most of the stuff is here, I have boxes of books everywhere and my beloved piano minus its ivory is still boxed up at Eardisland. It has been heartbreaking to see the damage that US Fish and Wildlife Service have done to much of the furniture and ornaments, and I am missing a number of items. Jim Elliott and the Board of the Center for Birds of Prey in South Carolina have a lot to answer for and always will have until they apologise and pay back the £600,000 that this has cost, not counting the heartbreak and stress. The firm I paid to pack up here and move my belongings did a great job and everything was brilliantly packed, they should have been, it cost me £14000 to have it done and took five days. However if you look at the other two pictures you will see what my poor furniture and belongings looked like after USFWS had been at them. Worse of all was a valuable painting that I had organised a special wooden box for had been unpacked by USFWS, but not repacked in the box, it was just put with other paintings and the wrong picture put back in the box, luckily for them we found it—it took 40 man hours, and it was undamaged otherwise they would have got a very large bill. I think its disgraceful, no way to treat anyone. Sadly there is no recourse because you only have two years to sue, and believe me I would have sued, but it is now four years. Quite frankly if I was going to leave someone’s belongings in that state I would not be stupid enough to emblazon my name on the tape either!!! That aside, and I have to say I find it hard to forget as I live with the results daily, I moved most of the stuff over and got the house just about liveable in by the 31st when I and the dogs made the final move for us. The birds were still at Eardisland and Alasdair moved into the trailer to make them secure. The weather was cold—very cold!! The house had not been heated for a fortnight and was bitter. After sleeping in the same bed as four/five labradors since November 1st 2004, I was looking forward to them sleeping in their old place in the kitchen, which was warm, and me sleeping in my old bedroom alone, which was freezing, but I had the vital and wonderful electric blanket, which is crucial for old cold houses. The day went fine, and at the end we went for a walk, the dogs were confused and wanted at the end of the day to ‘go home’ and indeed still today in February they are not settled, but we did OK. I was invited to supper next door which was great as I had nothing but tea and a little milk in the house (that continued for five days!). However after snuggling down in a warm bed, and finally sleeping, at 5.30am I was woken by howling!!! So I ran downstairs and let all four up, and we had another hour of sharing, which was fine. Simon was here, he is now my Curator, and we had one Eagle left by the previous owner, because it was a confiscated bird and could not be sold. He will join the family here. Simon had already started on the big clean up, and I have to say it was heartbreaking to see how dilapidated the place had become. But we move forward, now the house is warm (in parts! I turned off 13 radiators!) all but the books are unpacked. I am missing stuff which is sad. We have had reasonable weather in January to work on the place, sadly the February weather has not been quite so kind, but we are going to have a beautiful spring and a warm wonderful summer. The snowdrops are out, the daffodils are showing and I find I have a ton of people who really care about the place and want us to succeed, what could be nicer! We still have 40 aviaries to dismantle and bring over, plus about another 5 trailer loads of stuff, so my trailer will be earning its living for the rest of this month and part of March as well. Then we will be done—huge sigh of relief at that point……….
The Website My friend Linda Wright who takes such wonderful photographs is very kindly building our new website, I happen to think it is great and I am exceedingly grateful to her for taking it on. Almost all of the comments have been very complimentary. A very few have not found what they want. PLEASE remember I bought the Centre back on December 19th. I did not move in until New Years Eve. Our absolute priority has been to get the Centre cleaned up and the enclosures to a state where I can bring the birds back AND be ready for opening on Feb 1st. At the moment some of
the birds are still at Eardisland, which means that I am paying for two sites and an extra member of staff. Linda is a teacher and works full time, I am running around like a mad thing trying to get ready and the website is moving forward slowly, but surely. Be tolerant of our situation, be intelligent and understand that we can only do so much at a time. If you really want more, quickly, — then send a huge donation to help move things on, otherwise, understand that it will be all you need, but not immediately. Be like a forest eagle and be patient!!!!!
PS you have a far greater chance of my replying to you quickly through email rather than snail mail. JPJ PPS—I don’t do Texting!! It gets deleted, use my email instead
The Flying Team We brought over the Ferruginous Buzzard that Chris Neil gave us, the Lanner that Martin gave us, and the imprint and very noisy Peregrine that Bob Dalton gave us as the initial birds, because they had still been being flown at Eardisland up to December 7th. The first of flight of the Lanner was fine, but the next one he sat down in one of the trees, and the following day he did the same, which was very disappointing. There are far more mature trees here than at Eardisland and he had never sat down prior to that. However now he has the idea and is flying well, apart from the fact that he refuses to land in snow!. The Ferruginous Mick has taken over and he is doing well and the Peregrine is as difficult as ever and as noisy. Then came Hare, a Tawny Eagle, who should remember the field, and Dorothy a lovely Red tail that Mike Nicholls had given us over a year ago. She is very tame and Mike has done his usual good job on manning her. We also have Katana the Barn Owl that we bred last year, who is charming, although inclined to land on the customers or their cameras at the moment! These are now going well and we have added Hemp, the Eurasian Eagle Owl, three more Falcons including an African Peregrine and also the female Booted Eagle is being trained as we have no mate for her at this time. Copper will start back on work I hope, and behave himself, a couple of the Red Kites will soon join the team. We are working with Watamu, the Verreaux’s Eagle up and working along with his brother Kenya as well. All this will take time, so please forgive us if we are not at our usual best immediately. Flying demonstrations will probably be a little thin on the ground to start with, but will improve as we are able to add birds to the teams over the next few months. We also hope to have a young Griffon Vulture which would be fun to get going in the field and see if we can get some good flying from what is a huge bird.
60 YEARS OLD IN MARCH! ( and the Centre will be 42 in May!) And no pictures please!! Yup, the horrible truth is that I will be able to take my one and only pension on March 6th, from the government— hooray, and get cheaper travel, not that I suspect I will be going anywhere for a while. Actually I think I am not going to be 60 because I don’t remember anything of the first five years, so that means I am really only going to be 55, however I think that may be wishful thinking. And on that note I thought I would put a birthday wish list just in case anyone is desperate for ideas to give me huge presents this year. Not surprisingly much of what is on my birthday wish list is also on the Centre wish needs. A drainage expert and team to sort out all the water problems here A 1.5 ton mini digger in good working order Lessons to drive one! 20 tons of grey scalpings for the car park 130 tons of path topping 10 mil gravel topping for the paths One new septic tanks and the drainage to go with it £1,000,000 to pay off all my debts Another £2,000,000 to make the Centre the best in the world for ever! A great year of wonderful weather to encourage tons of visitors A commercial cylinder lawn mower 300 sheets of Onduline (brown for preference!) of which 100 sheets to be transparent Wheelbarrows—metal An electrical genius to design and help build heated perches for the birds next winter Rakes, Shovels, Brushes, Forks, Hoes The field next door Vast numbers of sheets of cream coloured 8’ x 4’ GRP for lining the aviaries Five Shetland sheep of different colours and one ram A bunch of flowers or three My carousel horse put on proper rockers A medium sized multi fuel burner for the office A decent computer for the staff to use for records Lots of shrubs for the gardens
And More…………!! While I am on the wish list, in November 2004 I left two fully furnished and working flats, I came back to two stripped flats, one of which has bird droppings all over the kitchen— nice. We are going to start work on the flats in March once the birds are all here and have what they need. We are going to have to strip out the kitchens and the bathroom and we need furniture for Simon and whoever else is ’lucky’ enough to come and work here! Chests of Drawers, sofas, arm chairs, small tables, a small double bed, anything decent that we could use to re furnish them. At the moment we are desperately short staffed, I did the actual flying for the demonstrations last Sunday alone, we are that short, so coming to collect stuff will be difficult at the moment. So not only do we need stuff (good stuff not falling apart please) , but we need it here - I know, what a nerve to ask, but if I don’t ask, you would never know that your second favourite sofa could have a lovely new home. Bear in mind that we have to get the furniture up an interesting set of stairs!! And thank you in advance!
BT—Pull your socks up Some people believe that BT stands for British Telecom, an old and respected name in the UK, and one that they should be proud of. However a great many of us know in fact that it stands for Business Terrorists, Blindingly Timid and many other better ideas than mine for the acronym. Knowing I was moving and knowing that BT advertise that they can make moving your Business (please note the word Business for which you pay more) Broadband an easy and pleasant experience, I was confident that all would go well! This is of course to lull you into a false sense of security, thinking that at least when you have survived the traumas of a move and missing all your vital stuff, and finding what is broken, etc, that at the very least you will be able to receive and send emails, you will be able to get vital business needs on line, in a word you will be able to continue to run or start your business for which you intentionally installed Business Broadband in the first place. The very nice gentleman whom I spoke to said ‘what day would you like to be moved (!!!!!!), and would you like it at both ends for a short while (I repeat!!!!!!!!!!!). I thought that might complicate things, so said no, just the Newent end. Its all lies, your Broadband will disappear, you will however continue to get bills for it. You will spend hours and hours on the phone talking to different people from different sections who will ask you the same questions you just answered with the last person, and end up either telling you a different reason why you can’t have your Broad band, or will tell you that they can’t help. And all will tell you that it will take at least (that is a joke as well!) five working days to get you up and running. By the end of six days of being on the phone to them for hours, if you ever hear the music they play again you may kill whoever happens to be unfortunate enough to be standing next to you at the time. You would of course like to strangle many of the people who have been unable, even though you have a working phone line that is hooked up to Broadband, and know your passwords etc, to actually just type in the necessary words to get you able to function again. Now to be fair, mine was not a completely simple move as lines had been cancelled, however Adam a friend of mine spent at least three to four hours per day for days and days, on the phone to BT trying to sort it out and failed. Both of us would like to get hold of the Executive team of BT and feed them to my vultures, or at the very least put them in the aviary with the Condor and tell them that we should be able to open the door to allow them out to resume their normal working lives within about five working days, not counting weekends and bank holidays. Of course to add insult to injury, like many large companies, BT business stops work on Sat afternoon, forgetting that the tourist industry, one of Britain's most important industries and one that might survive this recession, works seven days a week,
thus the weekends and bank holidays are in fact their most vital days, so never think you are going to get any help on those days, it is not going to happen. Now please note Mr Gordon Brown and the British Government, that we are in a huge and debilitating recession, (fuelled I might add by the media to a great extent) the world wide web is an extremely powerful tool and very important to businesses. BT is not helping businesses to be able to function, they are letting the country down, and part of it is because of laws you have put in place. I should add that many of the people we spoke to were very pleasant and tried to be helpful, some were not. But none could or would get the Broad band going again. So far in 21 days of giving notice that I was moving and needed my Broadband up and running I do not have it. I will be sending a bill to BT for the time wasted, the cost of the phone calls, most on mobile phones and the incredible frustration that both Adam and I have felt at this woefully poor performance from what should be a top company. Some of you will be saying why go with BT and indeed why, but remember, it is BT that put in the lines, and enable Broadband, so we are all at their mercy, which is a shame considering their poor performance. Eventually the right green light came on the router (of which I have now been sent Seven) with red ones needless to say, and when trying to see if I could get up and running, I finally got this superb message The Broadband link is currently not available! Error: The network username or password that has been entered has not been recognized. You will find your network login username and password in the first two emails sent by BT to your BT Business primary email address. Your username will come in the form of Axxxxxx@hgxx.btclick.com (The x's denote the numbers).
Except that………. if you have not got your link you can’t get the email to put in the information needed!!!!!!!!!! You also may think that I am complaining too loudly, however on sitting round the kitchen table with numerous people in the last few days not ONE of them did not have a nightmare story about BT………………...so I would say to BT on behalf of myself, Adam and the thousands of other people you are letting down, you should be ashamed of how you are letting British businesses down and you are letting down an old and what used to be a respected name. Pull your Socks up, we need you.
Footnote HOWEVER, although BT have not been great, they have at least been polite. And they knock spots off UNICOM—what a bunch of rude, unpleasant idiots. Their sales team need to go on a customer relations course— urgently, and their financial team need to be fed to a vulture or two. They may be cheap, although actually I suspect they are not, but I would not touch them with a barge pole!!
How you can help us………………..
Membership, membership. If you really want to help, join at the highest level of
membership you can afford. Why not think about becoming a Founder Life Member, this is the only year you will be able to do it!!
I know there is a recession, but as the advert says, we are worth it! Or at least the birds and the Centre are. Being a member means that you become sort of a part of the family here, and we like to think that we have a great family atmosphere. Check out the website and look at the various different memberships and what it will mean to you. It means a great deal to us.
An Obituary printed in the London Times........ Sadly true Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: Knowing when to come in out of the rain; Why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and‌‌.. maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge). His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault. Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason... He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights I Want It Now Someone Else Is To Blame I'm A Victim Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.