I keep wanted to be able to write and tell everyone that the house is sold and my worries are over. But it is still not sold. I am confident that it will but the various problems I have had with the buyer would not be believed if I told you. Plus if I think about it all my blood pressure goes through the roof, which is not good for me.

Guess who!

Things are moving slowly with the house I am buying. I did a pre planning application which I am delighted to say had a good result. So we should be fine on building the very smart breeding barn for Hen Harriers. I am excited about that and now just need to find someone to come and work with me for the next ten years to breed and release Hen Harriers in Southern England.

Today six of the nine birds still left for that are going to the vulture conservation centre in Wales run by Holly and Adam are going. So more empty aviaries, but we are taking some of the mesh so that I at least save that cost on the six new aviaries I have to build to house the remaining birds (not Hen Harriers). The amount of food I have to get out each day will decrease again! That will upset the dogs as they like to help with feeding round and having titbits.

I still have one Lanner to find a home for, otherwise all the birds are in their new homes. I have a list of where they all are and if anyone wants to go and see them, drop me an email. They are spread about across the country!

Arthur's Seat

I have to say that this drought is worrying, many of my plants and trees are looking a bit miserable and my Indian Horse Chestnut tree has failed to have viable conkers for two years now. And while I am thinking of it, what is wrong with grey squirrels brains, they have again taken every single hazel nut from my tree and not one of them had any nuts as it is far too early. They obviously do not learn from experience.

I drove up to Edinburgh via Yorkshire the week before last. I dropped off the last brood of Hen Harriers, to the release aviary on a grey and chilly moor, and then drove on up the A1 to Edinburgh - what a vile road. I am not doing that again. The M6 route is far easier. I went up because one sister lives in Edinburgh and my other sister was over from New York and my brother over from New
Zealand. It was the first time in 20 years that we were all in the same place - amazing. We did some lovely walks and went up Arthur's Seat although not to the top as there were too many people up there for me. We did however hear some young Peregrines on the cliff face.

My brother and I drove back on that dangerously hot day. We left at 5.30 to miss the worst of the heat and did manage fine. Although getting out of the car into over like heat was a shock to the system.

Did I paddle in the Sea - of course!

I have been having an interesting time getting out of my car anyway, the door handle drove inside the door and I either had to climb out of the passenger door or use our patent door opening stick which meant open the window, put the stick (mark 2) into the door handle on the outside and push - worked a treat although I got some pretty odd looks!

So I am still here, bird numbers are down, and IF IF IF things go according to plan, I will start to move from here in September. But believe me when I say I am not holding my breath.

 

Apologies for not having written before, but I have a really good excuse! It appears that having to give up
the bulk of your career/passion that you have work in all your life, having to give away 99 percent of the birds you have loved all your life, seeing all the staff leave, selling this property which has been a nightmare, but it nearly d and finding and buying a new house has been a little more stressful than anticipated. - Amazing really!! I had a haemorrhagic bleed in my brain on June 3rd. Having fed and walked the dogs, done the bird, rode my bike to the livery yard, rode a friend's horse and rode my bike home, I sat down to watch the Church Service at St Paul’s Cathedral for the Queens jubilee and my sight went peculiar. When I tried to read, I could make no sense of the words. So, phoned 999 and an ambulance came. They said I should go to hospital which I did and finally at about 12.00 midnight was admitted to hospital after blood tests and a CT scan.

After a total of two session in Hospital I am trying to keep calm and quiet - that is bloody impossible! Our volunteers, some of the staff and my neighbours have been amazing, they have taken me places as I am not allowed to drive at the moment, they have chopped up and skinned food for the birds and fed them, done the baths and aviaries and even taken the dogs for a walk as well as helping with the mowing of which there is a fair bit to do! 

As well as helping with all the baby Hen Harriers that we are managing for Brood Management this year So, there we are a very valid excuse I would say. 

 So where are we in finishing off. Still trying to finish the sale of this place, which is taking tar longer than it should have done, but it nearly there now. I have found a new place very close by but am not shouting about it until it is a done deal. We have nine vultures (three Cape vultures, two African White Backs, One Condor – Real – and one Egyptian Vultures – Cara) Holly’s two Verreaux’s Eagles and two Harris Hawks, Domino and Tork still to go to Wales when there are aviaries for them. The two young condors and Keats the White Tailed Sea Eagle are
over there already with Adam. Holly has been over with her parents in a very large very yellow van full of stuff, two falcons - Kuli and Marvel, and Flax. The falcons are staying over there. 

So 13 birds to go for Wales The six I am keeping, Hare (Indian Tawny Eagle) Hemp (Eurasian Eagle Owl) Coll (Savigny’s Eagle Owl) Corsair (Lugger) Windward (Merlin) and Pinotage (elderly Egyptian Vulture). Will all stay here until the buying of the new house is done and aviaries built for them which will hopefully be able to happen in August. There are two kites and one African Fish Eagle still to be collected That just leaves two male Lanners to find a home for now, one is a great flyer and one is for breeding.

We are hearing great things about all the birds that have gone, particularly those who were demonstration birds here before they left us. 

However the dogs hate it as there is no one here to mug for sandwiches or get stroked by, so a lot of the time they have to put up with just me. We are now in the waiting stage of this house sale being finalised and all the stuff that needs to happen when buying a new one. Once that is done I guess we will be running around trying to finish up an clear every thing to leave it as tidy as possible before actually moving.

The baby Great Greys in their new home

Still waiting to complete on this property, which I really seriously hope will happen next week as it is all a little nerve racking. When they say that moving house is the most stressful thing you can do I can believe it. It is all made more complicated as I have to find a property that will be good for me in my old age (no comments please!) and one that will be suitable to have part hived off for the Charity so that we can do the Hen Harrier project. So many places I have looked at have great land, and outbuildings with a good chance of planning for staff accomodation house and the Hen Harrier breeding barn but the house does not work. Or the land is on a 45% slope, or the house needs a new roof - I guess that is what everyone has to deal with. A couple have either been a house to die for, or one literally on the very edge of Dartmoor but no chance of planning for the Hen Harrier stuff. Agggggggggggggghhhhhhhh!!

All the staff bar Holly and Adam have now left and are all in their new jobs, Holly and Adam are planning on leaving at the end of this month. Almost all the birds have gone to their excellent new homes, we only have Peebles who is waiting for her new aviary to be completed, Rhyme Intrinsica who goes this evening, the King Vulture who is going to Cotswold Wildlife Park and will be very happy as she is missing visitors here, and a pair of lanners who will going a bit later. 

Hard Tackle posing in his new home

We have not been able to organise a place for the last female African Fish Eagle who is one of the confiscated birds as yet. Not only do we have to find a home but it has to be aproved by HM Customs who do not move quickly. I have to say I will be very glad never to take confiscated birds again, they are far more trouble than they are worth. So apart from the damn Fish Eagle, there is only one Lanner to find a home for, my beautiful Common, who used to do all my external demonstrations.

Adam is furiously rushing to Wales on a daily basis and is trying to finish off the aviaries so they can move all their birds and stuff. I believe that Holly is going through her clothes today!! That will be a mammoth task!

It is like a ghost ship here now, and by next month will just be me, the seven birds I am keeping and the dogs. A very odd feeling that will be after 55 years of the Centre being open. 

I will be going up to the North of England to collect the young Hen Harriers who are going to be brood managed this year, and then up again once they are grown enough to go into the release aviary, so I will not be bored. I just have to hope that my elderly Range Rover survives another trip or two. I did think about geting a new (er) car, but think I will wait until I have moved or killed this one which will be sad as I love it. 

Young Hen Harrierrs being reared for Brood Management

Adam got me to go into a Land Rover dealers the other day. New cars smell horrid. But although I hate to admit it I did like the new Land Rover however they are way out of my price range and anyway there is an 18 month waiting list!!! I forget which car it was but one of them lowered which would be good for the dogs, but it will all have to wait for a lottery win I suspect!! Ever onwards and upwards.....

 Easter is here and ironically the weather is glorious, so had we been open we would have had good visitor numbers, or perhaps we would not have. The cost of fuel is so high now that I suspect that will affect how people use their cars, so maybe we would not have been busy. Still at least I don't have to worry about the weather, will the cafe cope, will people park sensibly, will the dogs behave with visitors after a long break, but nevertheless it is a very odd feeling to not be open at Easter.

We have just run our Easter Egg race, I hard boil eggs, we paint them and then on Easter Sunday we go down to the field with all staff and the dogs and we roll the eggs on the ground round the posts in the flying ground. Sounds easy, just roll your egg, run after it, roll again until you are round and the fastest wins. However there is a handicap in the form of the labradors, who just love the whole thing and steal the eggs as they are rolled. This year I did enough for us to each have a spare, and still with that I did not get round, Sorrel stole the last egg, and carefully carried it in her mouth - what a good girl.

Cloudburst is going this coming week

We have more birds going next week and at the end of the week after most of the bird staff will be gone. So it will be very quiet. There is row after row of empty aviary which is not fun. 

We had a film crew here yesterday - all day - filming those falcons that we have left that we are flying, and wanting to talk about falconry and the history etc. The only problem with that for me is that I have never been that interested in the history, I have always been more interested in its future. Still they bought us pizza's for lunch.

The endless looking online for the right house continues, estate agents do not put the most important things one needs in a place to find them easily. I need at least ten acres, and as I troll through the details soem don't even put the acreage and others just put - a paddock. There are also rarely plans of the whole land, or enough photos. You would think that with the easy use of the internet they would put up more photos.

Adam is aviary building in Wales today, getting the materials for building anything is not easy at the moment, expensive if you can find what you need and more often not available for weeks. Brexit and Covid have a lot to answer for, that and the awful Mr Putin.

My gardens and the field are looking lovely at the moment, but it is time to mow the lawns again!

 We are coming up to Easter and it looks like the weather will be good, which of course would have been crucial if we were still open to the public, now we are not so it sort of doesn't matter. I used to think how nice it would be to not have to worry about the weather. Now it looks like the weather is having a laugh at us and going to be lovely for all half terms, bank holidays and school holidays!!

Benbecular now gone to Scotland - he'll love it

So how are we doing? We have had many of the birds go off to their new homes, it has been hard to see them go. Many of the people who have had them have sent photos of them safely in their new homes. 

I have to say I have been dissapointed and sort of annoyed at how few of them, who have been given (and I repeat given, not sold) our stunning birds, in excellent condition and all top quality birds, but who have not bothered to properly thank us, or me. Most of these birds belong to me, not the charity and it would have been nice to get some feelings of gratitude from many of those who have had them. I know I would have been incredibly grateful if I had been gifted birds such as these. Oh well, not much I can do about it but I won't forget.

We are down to less than 50 birds here bearing in mind that 26 will be going with Holly and Adam and me, so not many left to leave us, but it still hard to wave them goodbye, some of them have been a part of my life for a very long time.

Each empty aviary gets cleaned and perches removed and we are trying to move all the remaining birds into just four blocks of aviaries to make it easier to care for them.

Scarp still to leave us after Easter

All the staff bar Holly, Adam and I will have left by the end of the first week in May, all going to new jobs, some of which they will see and fly bird that came from here, which will be nice for them. It also means we will know how the birds are doing I hope.

Adam spends his time rushing from here to west Wales to build aviaries for the condors and other birds that are going with them. The aviaries are looking good, but the costs are rocketing and much of the things that he needs are difficult to get hold of. Holly has been over too and hatched two vultures there who are now back with their parents, which bodes well for the future.

I seem to spend my time trolling the internet looking for a new home, it very frustrating and surprisingly tiring. Everytime I think I have found a good one there is a problem, I found a lovely place not too far from here a couple of days ago and was going to see it, and then pulling out on google maps I spotted a large chicken farm literally next door and that is too high a risk from Avian Influenza. Another I had organise to go and see in Derbyshire was again lovely, and guess what - a shooting school next door!! And then there was one today, nice house, enough land and an Airport three fields away!! aaaaaaaagggggggggggggggghhhhhhh!!

Adam and I drove down to Devon a couple of days ago, the house I wanted to look at had sold before we got there, so we looked at two others, both were typical devon houses with very low ceilings, one needed far too much doing to it to be workable at the price they were asking and the land was not level at all, the other was very small and had a pylon in on of the fields, which was a shame and I really felt for the owners in trying to sell it.

And Five of them need even more space!

As I want to take my baby grand piano and some of my furniture and have space for five labradors, that means that the house needs to have reason able sized rooms with ceilings higher than 5 foot 10inches, and it seems that they are difficult to find. Places with enough land are not easy either, 4 or 5 acres are common, but 10 or more are not and if they are the houses are small or pokey. I am sure the right house will come up soon - I hope so anyway!

In the meantime, spring is here, the daffs are nearly over and the bluebells are coming out in the woods.

 Its cold today, after the glorious weather of the last few days, its a bit on the grey and chilly side today. I had planned to mow and do some spraying, but its not that welcoming outside. Yesterday Adam and I took down all the signs in the carpark, so the hanging sign with our logo, that is safely put away and will come with me, the others all went in for recycling. The carpark looks very odd without them, but perhaps it will encourage those who come to visit that the only notice left is the one that says Closed Permanently and yes it does mean it.

Just over 30 birds have gone so far, with a good number going in the next three weeks. All that have left are settling and we have had photos from some of the people who have had them which is really nice. Viruses have been causing us a few problems though!! Either people who were due to come can caught covid and so could not come. Or they have ended up in a surveillance zone for Avian Influenza, all of which slows down the process of rehoming. It is hard to see the birds go but it will be better for those going to public facilities to have visitors seeing them again, and those going to private people are generally those who did not like the public anyway.

Stratosphere who will go to Helmsley this coming week

The dogs are of course missing visitors, or perhaps I should be more honest as I think really they are missing the scrouging of food!

Another member of bird staff has a new job and the last two are going for interviews in the next couple of weeks. April approaches quickly with Easter very late this year, we are still going to have our traditional easter egg race in the field though.

 

Adam is over in Wales a lot of the time building wonderful temporary aviaries for the vultures who are going over. He hopes to get that all finished by the end of May. Holly has been going over to help with a couple of the eggs that the vultures have laid.

Eager and mate went today to a great home in Norfolk

I am still looking for a new property, the exchange of contracts here I hope will happen in the next couple of weeks, and then I can be more serious about looking. There is not much on the market but I hope that will get better when more people put their properties on the market. It is really frustrating when the estate agents leave all the sold properties on their website. I am also finding that the brochures do not give you the information that you need. Views from above are really useful but rare. A plan of all the buildings would be really useful but also rare. As for the ukfarmsandland website, the damn thing crashes with monotonous regularity which is seriously frustrating.

 

Indian Chestnut, not so beautiful now

There is still some clearing up of tree damage since the last storm, we lost a huge branch off a sycamore tree and that hit my Indian Horse Chestnut, but we have had to wait until the ground is dry enough to take a trailer down and do the clear up.

I had thought that perhaps when I move and have a bit more time and privacy that I would grow my own vegetables, but last year Anna gave me some tomato plants, which grew really well, but only have 5 tomatos and they never went red, so I got fed up with them!

 

So we move on with the next chapter, and we are all on board with what we are doing, the plan is a good one. Actually looking at the horrific price of fuel right now I doubt we would have had many people be able to afford to come, so we have by sheer chance timed it right for ICBP

Not successful tomato plants - never again!!

 

How Things Are Going At ICBP

 

For those of you who have contacted us to see how the future is looking for ICBP, many thanks it is lovely to know that you care.

The process of closing the Centre is done,we finished all the owl evenings, and completed a further month of experience days. The rest we had to cancel and refund the finances because if we had run all of them we would have still be doing them in October and we could not afford to do that. Don't forget though, this is not the end of ICBP, but just a different chapter in its long life! 

All the birds are well, the Avian Influenza zone was lifted last week and so we have been able to start moving birds. The first 14 went on Tuesday to a good friend of ours who has had birds from us before, it was hard to see them go, but better that they get settled quickly. Two more went today, and there are another nine going over the next two days. We have made sure that all are going to places where their housing is as good as here or better. We plan to have all of those who are not staying with me or going with Holly moved and settled by the end of May at the latest.

One of our bird staff is sorted out job wise and leaving in the third week of April, the other three have all gone for interviews and will hear soon. So it is good to know that they will find new jobs fairly easily. Holly and Adam are staying until we have moved all bar the birds I am taking, then they will move with all the vultures that are going with them, plus a few other birds Holly is taking. That will be a move and a half.

Exactly which of the birds  goes with me is a moveable feast as I will take those that we can’t rehome, either because I don’t want them to go or because they are too old or cantankerous to find the right homes. But it will be 8 – 10 birds I think.

The property has been sold subject to exchange of contracts. But in case you are wondering, not as a bird of prey centre. I have done that before and am not doing it again. The buyer has been kind enough to give me time to finish everything here and find a new property to go to. If they love this house and land as much as I do that will be great.

Where am I and the charity going? That is a question that people ask me and the answer is at the moment I do not know. Until the contracts are exchanged for this property there is no point in getting excited about a new place. I am looking, and there are a few properties out there, but not many at the moment. I am told that more will come onto the market once the spring is here. I am looking in several areas and hope to find somewhere as quickly as possible. Once I do I will let everyone know what area I and the charity will be moving to.

So that is about it for now. We move on waiting for various things to happen and in the meantime, care for the birds, tidy up everywhere as we go along and get rid of things that we no longer need. We are not bored that is for sure.

 

I am sort of guessing that most of you will have learnt by now that we have closed the doors at the International Centre for Birds of Prey for the last time to the general public. BUT this is not the end of ICBP, the charity, the conservation work that we do or me.... oh no!

Actually I suspect that few of our visitors really know what conservation work we do because we have never been very good at boasting about it. But we should have boasted, and we should be proud of the conservation work that we have done and will still be doing.

I have had so many emails and messages since we put out the notice that we were closing. As far as I know, bearing in mind that I don't actually follow facebook or twitter or whatever, but as far as I have been told, there has not been one unpleasant comment. Which is not only very nice and heart warming, but very different from some of the appalling comments put on things like the falconry forum when I came back from the US. For those of you lovely people who put the unpleasant ones up - I still have them and will eventually find
out who you are!!!

I have been proud to hear from so many people who having been here regularly, volunteered here or worked here who said that the Centre changed their lives and their direction in life. That is great to know. I am proud of the work done with thousands of injured wild birds of prey that have come through the hospital here and many have had a second chance back in the wild. I am proud of the educational work that we have done in the last almost 55 years, and known that many of our visitors have left with a far greater appreciation of birds of prey. I am proud of the work that we have done and will still be doing in India and Nepal on Vulture Conservation. I am proud of all the various conservation projects we have helped all over the world. And I am proud that we will be continuing much of the more private work on into the future in the charity.

I am very proud of the way the staff are dealing with us closing and the amazing volunteers who are sad and dissapointed that we will no longer be here in about six months, but who are prepared still to come and help us, even down to the last few birds.

Most of the staff have already applied for new jobs and we have had a number of people ask if they are available! Many of the birds have been offered new homes and once we are out of the surveillance zone we will get them settled in their new homes. Adam and Holly are getting organised for the move to Wales and the vultures will go with them. I now have to find a new property that will fit the bill so that I, the dogs, about 10 birds, hopefully a new and safe horse (!) - a smaller one!! can have a good life, continue some conservation breeding programmes that we are involved in and have less pressure as well. I will have one member of staff to help me, who I hope will not mind caring for the dogs if I have to go abroad. Not found him or her yet either!

So things are moving on. I am just looking forward to getting some of this done so I can actually have a nights sleep that does not start at 4.00am!

 I am glad to be back, I should have kept up with this blog and just have not either got round to it or had time. Its four years, where does the time go?

Life has changed so much in the last few years, not just because of Covid, although that has had a huge effect. As for Brexit, what a travesty, and I wonder how many people now regret either not voting or voting to go without understanding the results!

 So apart from Brexit and Covid, what else has happened, we have had two Cafe managers, both of whom now have other jobs, one because of Covid and one because he did not drive and so getting to work was pretty tricky. We have had a number of different bird staff, these days people tend not to stay long in jobs. I was talking to a friend of mine who runs a company of over a hundred employees and he said the same thing. People do about two years and then move on. It is a hugely different philosophy than it was when I was younger. We have had three gardeners, Rob left to go self employed, the second one decided he did not like working outside or alone (!) and sadly the third one was lost because of Covid, as indeed were Jan and Mary from the shop. Covid has an awful lot to answer for.

We had a new water main put in and the lawn it had to go across has now recovered thank goodness. Apparently we also resurfaced the carpark, which I can vaguely remember.

A pair of buzzards have been nesting in an oak tree in our flying field for the last three years and they are a bit of a pain because they beat up any bird apart from falcons that go anywhere near the tree. They beat up our birds and the crows beat them up!

We have run two Incubation Courses again with Susie Kasielke from Los Angles, the last one we finished and Susie got home Just before Covid hit and the world closed down. Neil Forbes ran a couple first aid and husbandry courses for us in 2018 as well, which was incredibly kind of him.

We ran a Vulture Harnessing Workshop in August 2019 in the Education room, it went very well, and we had people from South and North America, Africa, Portugal, Spain, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Scotland and England. Much was learnt and discussed, and the workshop although not a money making venture, continued the work of putting ICBP on the world map for conservation. During the workshop, Benbecula the Steller’s Sea-eagle went AWOL, his telemetry came off and we were reliant on Facebook to get sightings, although you would think that an eagle that size (huge) would be easily spotted. However after chasing many fruitless reports, we finally got a good report and he was seen sitting on the winners post at Chepstow Racecourse! He was very pleased to see Holly when they got there.

We had our five yearly Zoo inspection in November 2018 and then the three yearly one in 2021. We passed both without too much to get done. They get harder and as I write we are now awaiting the new Secretary of States Standards in Zoos, which will go out to consultation once DEFRA get them out. I doubt if anything we say in the consultation will be taken any notice of because it never has been. It

looks like tethering birds in zoos is likely to be banned. If it is across the board and we are not allowed to tether parent reared birds for training purposes it will be a disgrace because trying to train parent reared birds free lofted is far far more stressful for the bird. I don't know who the 'experts' were who have decided this, but there is no doubt at all that they are not expert in training birds of prey.

We closed for Covid along with everyone else, but managed to get most of the Owl Evenings done. However at the end of last year (2021) we did have to cancel the last one because our cafe manager came down with Covid. We have changed the format to a much better one, but then had to change it again because of Avian Influenza which has been the worst outbreak the country has known.

Because of the AI for the last two winters we have had to stop taking in injured wild birds of prey, which is really hard to do, I hate turning them away, but the risk to the collection is too high.

I have not travelled anywhere since 2020. I did go to the Raptor Research Foundation Conference in South Africa in November 2018, which was good and I travelled to India and Nepal as usual, and again in 2019, but have gone nowhere abroad since for obvious reasons. I suspect that those conservation trips will probably start again this year (2022).

Over the last four years we have lost a few birds, we had all our Pigmy Falcons die, we still have not discovered the reason, but I suspect a virus coming in with the food. Last year my beautiful Red Kite Muckle Roe dropped dead in the air while I was flying her. A good way for her to go but a hell of a shock for me. This year we lost Karis my beloved and amazing Saker Falcon whom many people has seen in his spectacular stoops, and Lambrusco our second oldest Yellow Billed Kite. We also lost our lovely Barn Owl which was a big loss for us all. We do now have a lovely pair of Secretary Birds who I hope will breed.

We did a number lectures at Malvern Theatre in '18 and '19 thanks to Nic Lloyd, they were pretty good and it was incredibly kind of his to host them.

But we did have to cancel the last six day falconry course because of Covid, we have not done one since either. 

We made some big changes to the Centre during Covid, we moved the Cafe to the shop so it was more accessible to people passing by. We had no shop for a while but moved some of to the Pavillion in the flying field last summer. We have reduced the collection, sending five vultures to Bulgaria one Saker falcon and four Lesser Kestrels for their conservation breeding programmes. Five of our African White-backed vultures have gone to a lovely huge aviary at Longleat. We have enlarged a number of the aviaries which look great and give the birds more room and have emptied Barn 2 which needs to be taken down.

We moved on almost all the birds from the Lendrum case (illegal birds brought in as eggs from South Africa). And we have had to cut back on the breeding because it is much more difficult to find good homes for the young and so it is wrong to try and breed them.

I think that gets you all pretty much up to date. We did lose a beautiful and very old Turkey Oak in
storm Arwen. It had been condemned by the tree survey man, but I still hated to see it down. Luckily it did not do too much damage and our insurers the NFU have been brilliant about it.

All the dogs are well except that Sorrel has dog dementia which means she barks alot and gets confused easily. But otherwise apart from Flax deciding she wanted to live to Holly instead of me, they are well.