Hawk Conservancy Trust Newsletter Spring 2021 Issue 87

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HAWKTALK SPRING2021 ISSUE 87

g our winter ce for your nd we’re so e great things

We were really busy durin closure getting plans in pla much anticipated return, a excited to share all of thes

DEFENDERS OF THE TRUST Guardians of the Meadow

with you now!

Last year we launched our Giant Top Trumps Activity Trail – young adventurers can hunt down the cards and play against them with their Super Top Trumps card, there are six of these to collect in total! Plus, there are extra fun activities to do along the way. 9 For the last few years we’ve been crossing our fingers and hoping that our pair of Steller’s Sea-Eagles may breed. The pair came to us sexed as a male and female. Birds of prey can be tricky to sex and sometimes it’s incorrect, and in this case, it was. However, we were really excited to swap one of the males for a female. There’s not much to report from them yet but we’re hopeful that in the future they may have a youngster. Be sure to look out for them on your next visit. The female is very impressive and distinctly bigger in size with an enormous beak – one of the biggest in the world of birds of prey! Cooper, our young Variable Hawk , joined the team last summer and was paired with Mike Riley. Our hope is that we may be able to introduce you to her in some of our displays later this year. Some of you may remember her mum, Mace, who used to fly in our woodland and she was beautiful to watch in flight, so we hope that Cooper will follow in her footsteps! 10 11

Last year, to mark the celebration of the 25th anniversary of Reg’s Wildflower Meadow and in response to the devastating impact COVID-19 had on the Trust’s finances, we launched our Guardians of the Meadow Appeal. The challenges are not yet over but we are overjoyed to have you back visiting us again. We’ve used the time we weren’t able to open to come up with creative solutions to our financial situation, with this appeal being one of them. We are so grateful to all of you who have already supported us by becoming a Guardian of the Meadow.

If you would like to help secure the future of the Trust by adopting a plot and becoming a Guardian of the Meadow, you can find out more at www.hawk-conservancy.org/ meadowappeal. Guardians of the Meadow will: • Receive a certificate of adoption and you can choose from six iconic plant species seen in the meadow over the years • Your name will be displayed on a special sign celebrating Guardians of the Meadow • Help secure the future of the Trust and, ultimately, support the fortunes of birds of prey and their habitats.

Giant Top Trumps Activity Trail

We are now taking bookings for all of our experiences again, including our exclusive experience with Lloyd and Rose Buck and their amazing birds! If you would like to book an experience, please call us on 01264 773 850. Our events calendar is back for 2021 and we have some new events this year for you as well. For full details, please see the back cover or go to www.hawk-conservancy.org/events where we will continue to add events as they go on sale. 12 13 For those looking for a special treat, we have a fantastic new range of Beeswax products in our shop, amongst many other delights. This new range from The Great British Bee Company includes candles, soaps, lip balms and reed diffusers. They’re all handcrafted, and we can attest to their quality! 14

Chicks at Changa Manga! We are delighted to announce that three

and other harmful drugs, by establishing Vulture Safe Zones, within which we raise awareness with local communities and livestock owners, and monitor vulture populations. At the start of March this year, we received exciting news from the team at Changa Manga where they had spotted a wild Asian White-backed Vulture. This is the first time that one has been seen in the area for 10 years! The lone vulture fed on some carrion the centre supervisor left out for it, stayed overnight and then went on its way. Although it was fantastic to see a wild bird in Changa Manga, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are recolonising the area, it seemed to just be passing through. Wonderful for the team to see, nonetheless!

Asian White-backed Vulture chicks have hatched this season at our conservation breeding centre in Pakistan! The first chick hatched in late December 2020, followed by a second in January and the third at the end of February. All three are doing very well in our state-of-the-art breeding aviary along with their doting parents and the rest of the colony. This project is run in partnership with WWF-Pakistan, and is part of our work to conserve Critically Endangered vultures in south Asia. The project has been extremely successful in the last few years and there are now a total of 29 birds, including 15 adults and 11 immature birds, plus these three new chicks. The breeding centre is the only facility of its kind in Pakistan and the aim is that these birds will eventually be released into the wild, once the area is safe. Changa Manga Forest used to be home to the largest breeding colony of Asian White-backed Vultures in the world, until it was affected by the massive declines across south Asia when tens of millions of vultures (equating to 99.9 percent of populations) were killed as a result of consuming cattle carcasses that had been treated with the veterinary drug diclofenac, which is fatally toxic to vultures. Since then, significant efforts have been made to remove diclofenac

Cooper, Variable Hawk

New range of Beeswax products