National Birds of Prey Centre
NEWSLETTER August 2003, Number 17 Directors notes.
male may bring her in during the winter.
Well April seems like a long way off now, and can you believe with all the dry weather we have had, it did actually have the nerve to be totally consistent and rain for my last Easter here!!
I have travelled to the US four times so far this year, I get to a gold miles card on the next trip which is September!! Princess Anne came over to South Carolina in April, she was doing a US trip and kindly agreed to come and do a
As I write we have just been through one of the hottest weeks I can remember, although we have had some pretty hot summers here over the 37 years. I think that someone up there is trying to get me and the birds and dogs acclimatised for South Carolina, and it is working too. We have had a reasonable breeding season, with Simon Brough, who joined us last year, amazing everyone with his dedication to work, he checked the eggs at three hourly intervals through every night. You have to take into consideration that our breeding season starts with eggs in January and we have just about finished now, so that is dedication in the extreme. The gardens have looked wonderful this year with the warm weather, the roses and the wisteria were just stunning fund raising event for the new Center, so she has now seen the new site and the plans, and understands the potential of the place. I was really pleased when Jim and I went to see her 18 month ago to tell her of our plans. We were both concerned that she would not be happy that I was leaving the country, but with no prompting at all she pointed out to us that I can do my conservation work from anywhere in the world and that made me feel much better. On the other hand, I have had some rather less understanding people who have phoned and called me a traitor to my country, which I found rather unpleasant. But you would have been proud of me, I was very polite!
in May and still things are looking good even now with the drought. All except, that is, for my pond which looks very empty and sad right now. The swans left us this year, and I have missed them although with the water this low it is probably a good thing. We think the old female died because the male was alone for months and then a new female arrived, but she is much more nervous and so they have barely been here. The old
The show season is nearly over thank god. The CLA Game Fair was absolutely baking hot, and I am sad to announce ladies and gentlemen, that we can no longer call the USA a country of overweight people, we are in the same league ourselves. The number of overweight people, in highly unsuitable clothing for the weather and their size was a chastening sight. So get exercising out there!! Flying the birds in these temperatures has been interesting and my best Saker Falcon has done his absent without
leave trick three times this year. I am now calling him an out of sight out of mind bird. However the up side is that he only stops and sits on houses worth over £500,000! So he is reasonably easy to find again! I will tell you more of future plans in other articles, and ideas for you the members too. As ever jpj
THE VERY GOLDEN EAGLE !! If you visit the Centre in the next few months, I want no comments about the somewhat startling bronze statue (over laid with gold leaf) of an eagle that is standing on the law near the burrowing owls!! We know it is very very golden! In fact it’s the only Golden Eagle at the Centre at the moment. I had two pairs of Golden Eagles at the Centre at the start of this year, but the female of one pair was very nervous in front of the public and always had been so I put the pair on loan to a friend of mine. They are now much happier and more settled being away from public view. My other pair, Cinnabar, the one we bred and her very elderly husband, suffered a bereavement and the old male died. As I am not allowed to take Golden Eagles or Bald Eagles to the US, I wanted to make sure that Cinnabar went to a really good home where she was flown, and that I have done. However back to the really golden eagle. As you may remember we were given a lovely bronze statue at the start of this year, who I am delighted to say I have permission to take with me as an opening statue at the new Center. So imagine my surprise when I got a phone call asking me if I wanted a
bronze eagle from what used to be Eagle Star insurance—the same people who gave me the first one!! Anyway I spoke to the people who are hopefully buying the Centre and asked them if they were interested in having the second eagle here as I knew they were disappointed I was taking the first one. They said yes and organised for its delivery. I think we were all a little surprised when it arrived, because although we had seen pictures, they did not do it justice!! The lorry driver who delivered it said that he had had nothing but questions in the traffic jams on the way up, and certainly there have been many here. It is very gold! However, when you see it, imagine it on a brick or stone plinth so you are seeing it from below, which is what it was designed for, and the gold toned down with brown, it really will be a nice piece. So bear that in mind if you come soon!
WINTER 2003 OWL EVENINGS Yes we are running these as usual, however there are a couple of differences. I will be running the November ones, and if all goes according to plan, the last ones up to Christmas will be under the charge of the Hopkins and Mark Parker.
The dates are November
14th and 15th 21st and 22nd 28th and 29th
December
5th and 6th 12th and 13th 19th and 20th
This year they are going to start at 7.00 pm rather than 6.30pm to give people more time to get to us from work. So give us a ring to book tickets as places are more limited this year—less people on each one. Remember each bring a torch and wear warm clothing.
BAD LUCK AND GOOD LUCK Mark Parker Dark Dagger a Gyr x Peregrine Hybrid came to us at the National Birds of Prey Centre in 1998, having been given as a donation to the centre from a breeder in Monmouth. Initially Dark Dagger was a difficult bird to train, being hard to handle in just about every department, noticeably in his ability to fly off with the whole lure assembly, and his complete lack of co-operation when anybody tried to pick him up off a perch. He was also quite good at biting members of staff even when he had a hood on. I put considerable time and effort into calming him down, building up some trust, and then slowly developing his flying skills. At first he flew in what can only be described as something resembling a fast moving lawnmower, and bizarrely he always flew around the demonstration area in the same clockwise direction. There were times when I
front of him, off he went nose to tail with the pigeon behind Jemima’s house at vast speed, he had never done this before, but the pigeon did try very hard to temp him, albeit by accident. All subsequent attempts to trace his whereabouts were fruitless, and we could not pick up a signal from the telemetry at all. 48 hours later a near by farmer contacted us having located Dark Dagger. I went to retrieve the falcon, where upon it transpired that he had stopped and perched on the edge of a large cattle trough. He had then we assume, jumped in for a bath or a drink. The water was
approximately 3 feet deep with a lip of approximately 14-16 inches. Having gone in and got wet he was unable to get out and sadly drowned. A falcon’s life and five years of work gone in such a short space of time. I miss him immensely, and hope that those of you who saw him fly, enjoyed the spectacle, and admired his skills as much as I did.
really wondered if he would ever develop at all. But slowly he improved and eventually started to produce some quite stunning flying demonstrations. By his second season he became much more consistent, his forte being the vertical stoops that he would do time and time again, pulling out and flying close over the audience at vast speed. For some bizarre reason he often appeared to pick a lady wearing a pink top in the audience as the person to fly over at the end of each stoop. Why he should do this with such consistency I never did work out. Each year he got better and better and more consistent, which made him a very exciting and enjoyable falcon to fly. As so often happens, if you give a bird time and you are patient, those efforts will be rewarded in the long run. Two months ago during a flying demonstration, Dark Dagger chased a pigeon, which presented itself right in
In contrast on a much happier note, many of you will know or have seen Graphite, a female Merlin who we have flown on demonstrations at the centre for nearly 9 years. She made her mark with her famous stall turns just prior to a vertical stoop. She has this year become a mum, for the first time with 3 babies. Quite remarkable, as earlier on in the year she was very, very ill and nearly lost her life. I am hoping that Jemima will let me keep one of the baby Merlins to fly, as without a doubt Graphite has always been one of my favourites and to train one of her children would be a privilege.
THIS
YEARS CROP OF BABIES
We had a difficult start to the year with a number of eagle eggs failed, and some of the falcons have finally passed breeding age. However we did very well with the owls, and Simon managed four very nice eagles for us, two Tawny Eagles, one African Fish Eagle and one Verreaux Eagle. All bar the Verreaux is staying with us. We have bought in a number of new falcons, some to go with me and some to stay and a good friend gave me the pretti-
est Lanneret you will ever see, who is just going free now. We also added eight new owls to the flying teams, five Simon bred here and three came in from various friends and breeders. Any minute now we will get out the three baby Merlins that we bred and the single Red Kite all of which are going to join the team for this year. But the most interesting has been the young African Fish Eagle. Usually these birds are nervous and difficult to manage, and take ages to get settled and flying. The young female this year is amazing, she is calm, nice tempered so far, and did a training demonstration each day at the Game Fair having only been tethered for three weeks. We are hoping to fly her free today, because the training line is now hampering her flying. Also great fun are Tobermorie and Northern Lights seen here below, they are great fun to watch and doing well in their training, if a little distracted at times. The name theme this year was chosen by Charlotte and is Whisky!
The kids We have had a tough year with Lupin this year, in fact if you visit now you can still see the aftermath of her trials and tribulations. About ten weeks ago she looked like the chain saw massacre. She was not well and went to the vets and one of her ‘old dog’ lumps and bumps turned out to be cancerous, so off they came—all Fifteen of them. Poor angel was very sore and sad for a week, she then had to have a second operation for one other dangerous lump and the first 100 stitches taken out!!
wounds as a sympathy vote to the picnickers here this summer—with great success! All the rest are OK and coping well with the hot weather, they wander out, mug the customers and then amble back to the house to cool down and then start again. Three came with me to the CLA Game Fair and I have to say I can’t recommend trying to sleep with three dogs on a single camp bed. But then, personally I can’t recommend camping anyway!! INJURED WILD BIRDS Having just done a report for the Trust on the injured wild raptors that are brought in to us here, Annie and I were interested to see that the numbers point to 50% less birds brought in by this time a year ago. We are not sure why, it may reflect the warm sunny weather, but it will be interesting to see if that number increases over the rest of the year. The number so far is 37 birds only. The Hawk Conservancy have just delivered two young sparrowhawks that were brought into them, and they feel need training to hunt before they are released. So Simon and Gareth are going to train, hunt and fly them to release.
However she is much better and has been using the
The National Birds of Prey Trust The Trust has had two of its three meetings this year and has awarded three grants so far, with another application in with the grant reviewers. The applications are looked at twice a year in January and June. A grant was awarded to the Pinjore Captive Care Vulture Centre in northern India, this allowed for three more quarantine aviaries to be built and a new piece of equipment for the in–house Laboratory. This added to the funds from the Darwin Initiative. It is aimed at assisting with the work trying to solve the problem of what has caused a 97% population crash in the Asian Gyps Vulture species. A grant was awarded for the Cape Verde Kite Project, this has not yet been fully used, but the various invoices entailed in bringing the Kites into the UK and the blood testing for DNA analysis have now been covered. The Kites are doing well and have moulted nicely, they did not show any signs of breeding. We are attempting to get them into aviaries that are out of view of the public, where we consider they will do better. A grant was awarded to NBPC to assist towards the cost of the injured wild birds that come in, it does not reflect the cost of the care of the birds, but does help in a small way. The Trust has had two very nice surprises this summer, a bequest from Giles Woodward, who is the executor of a client in Bristol who left him some funds to distribute. I met him at a demonstration I was giving, and we talked about the work that the Trust does. He said that he would like to help and very kindly donated £5000 from the ladies Will. The Trust is extremely grateful to Mr Woodward and to our unknown benefactor. The other surprise was another bequest of £1855.25 from Levi and Co, who again were the executors to a Will and again we extent our thanks to the executors and the families. Talking of bequests, this summer I have had a number of people contact me about the changes here at the Centre. They were concerned because either they had left the Trust something in their Will, or in the case of two people they had left the Trust their whole estate. They were worried that because I was going, the Trust would cease to exist. So let me explain the Trust’s position to you right now. The Trust at the moment is a grant making organisation. Its offices are here, purely because I am based here, however when I leave, the Trust’s offices will move to Cirencester to the Treasurer’s address. I will remain as the Founding Trustee for ever!!! They can’t get rid of me and I will be attending the three meetings a year. So the Trust will continue to do the work that it was set up to do, in the future. I hope that we will be funding a small hospital room at the existing Centre, as the new owners have said they will continue to take in injured wild birds, and we would like to help with that project. We will still be funding the Cape Verde Kite Project, although the Kites may move to a quieter home. So in all seriousness, if you approve of what the Trust does and would like to make it a beneficiary of your Will, that would be wonderful, and we will still honour your interest in what we intend achieving over the coming years, and on into the future. We are going to build a new website dedicated to the Trust, the address will be www.nationalbirdsofpreytrust.org so keep an eye out for that. I am going to enclose a Trust leaflet in this newsletter, with the new address, please keep it safe, you never know when it might come in handy! I will be sharing the next newsletter with the new owners, so that there is a good crossover, but after December I will try to do a short newsletter just on the Trust. So if you are interested, please let me know soon so I can make a data base of addresses and we may make a special Trust membership to cover the costs, but remember that will not mean free entry to the Centre, it will just be for the Trust work and news. Jemima Parry-Jones Founding Trustee
UP DATE ON THE MOVE I have so far made four trips to South Carolina this year, all to do with the move. Each time Jim and I work more on the site, or plans, or speak with Architects and so on. I should point out here though, that Jim has pretty much the whole of the building work on his side to get done, plus running his own existing Center in SC. However we have a great team to back him up. Laura is Jim’s PA and she is untiring and works very hard. There is a development team working on the site planning and all that entails, and believe me, it entails a great deal! The last trip Jim and I were measuring out the aviaries on the ground and arguing as to where they should be! We managed to agree it all and I left him to it!! Well, its not really like that, but there is little I can do from this end, apart from have input on the designs and be kept in the loop. And quite frankly I have so much work here to do I barely get through each day anyway. The initial paperwork for exporting the birds is underway, and I am chasing it. However the list of birds has changed a little since the initial application because of new birds being bred, a couple of new birds arriving and other changes. THE NEW OWL WOOD WHERE ALL THE OWLENCLOSURES ARE BEING BUILT
For example Treasure, my ex trained Secretary Bird is now not coming. We tried moving her into a new aviary the other day and she completely lost the plot and got very upset, Annie and I looked at one another and decided there was no way we could take her if she got that upset.
THE SMALL FLYING FIELD, WHERE THE OWLS AND OTHER BIRDS WILL FLY AND THE ENTRANCE TO THE NEW CENTER OPENS ON TO HERE
THE RICE FLYING FIELD, WHERE ALL THE LARGE BIRDS WILL BE FLOWN
At the same time we are doing the application for the US end, which requires a huge amount of writing. The young birds are being trained, so they will be fit before they leave. I have designed the boxes and have to find someone to make them up. And both Jim and I are trying to find a suitable plane to take the birds, all the equipment needed for them. Richard Jones, the vet who is joining us in the US and his wife and luggage, the records for the birds, Annie and her luggage, and the dogs! We hopefully move in December.
The Centre is going into new hands, most of the staff, about 80 of the birds and all that keeps them safe and happy are staying as we are now. The new owners, of whom I will introduce you to in the next newsletter are buying me out and keeping the Centre as it is now—open to the public and continuing with the courses. I am sure they will have some nice new ideas for all of you and make some improvements. They are experienced business people (which I am not) and will have an experienced team of bird people trained here, to help them. So I know that you will still be able to visit as normal.
MEMBERSHIP For those who are still members, I hope that having read this you will know that you can happily renew your membership next year. Al-
They will still run the Owl Evenings next year, which we are going to run this year, probably together, this winter. So you see, there will be much for you to have available to you, and I hope you will continue to remain as members and come and see the staff and birds on a regular basis. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ THE LAST OF THE SHOWS By the time you receive this newsletter I will have only two external demonstrations to do—will I miss them, absolutely not!! The Game Fair went well and all the birds did very very nice flying, by the last day they were really on form, but the area is beautiful and perfect for good flying. If all the flying arenas were as good, my job would be easy. But some are not. I had a vile weekend the other day, a tiny ring, the terrier racing team Right on the edge of the arena and
though I will not be here, there will still be many of my old staff, lots of the birds and new ones to tempt you. The flying demonstrations will still continue as ever, and so will all the courses. I know that Mark Parker is planning new exciting courses, and the potential new owners have already bought in some new birds, so be asa difficult day weather wise, and Hare my eagle was not happy. So much so that he stayed in a tree from about 2.30 that afternoon until about 6. 20am the next morning, he was not my favourite bird. And it was hot as hell to be sitting waiting for him!! My very last show is Chatsworth which is also my favourite and one that I hope I might be able to return yearly to do, I am sort of planning to anyway.
sured of things being here in February, when I think they are going to reopen after the normal winter closing this year.
It is in the most beautiful setting ever and its only when you consider leaving your country, that you realise that this is without doubt, the most beautiful country in the world.
Have a great autumn everyone Jemima Parry-Jones MBE
OK, SO I RAN OUT ON TIME AND IDEAS— GREAT PICTURE THOUGH!