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Teaching an old bird new tricks

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Those of you who have been visiting the Trust for a long time will remember our superstar Bald Eagle – Cheyenne. After many years of soaring over the East Cholderton valley, she is enjoying a peaceful retirement at the grand age of 29 years old. She is dutifully cared for by Bird Team member James Knight, who in recent months has started some new training with her to make sure she stays active. Read James’s blog to hear all about it:

“Cheyenne is one of the oldest residents here at the Hawk Conservancy Trust at just under 30 years old. In her youth, she was one of our most iconic birds, flying in our displays as an ambassador of her incredible species. As she is now an older bird, she is enjoying a very well-earned retirement. Her younger brother, Orion, has taken on the mantle of flying in demonstrations and is excelling in them!

While Cheyenne is taking a much more laid-back approach to flying these days, she’s living in an off-show aviary behind the scenes of the Trust, in a section I often look after. We’ve been getting to know each other, and I’m working hard to keep her in tip top condition.  During the last couple of months of working together, we’ve been working for Cheyenne to take part in her own health checks. This is a really fantastic way of not only keeping a wonderful working relationship with one another and making sure Cheyenne still has time to interact and socialise, it also allows us to monitor if she has a clean bill of health and undertake any necessary health care she may need!

Fortunately, Cheyenne is fit and healthy. But as she gets older we want to make sure we can look after her as best as we can. So a few of the things we’ve been looking at together is giving Cheyenne the opportunity to present her feet for health checks.  This involves Cheyenne holding her talons up to a specific part of her aviary netting, and allowing us to inspect the undersides of her feet and make sure her talons are clean and in good order. She’s a clever girl, and has really been getting on with this new routine. It only took a few sessions of us working on this together for her to figure it all out.

Now that she is happy presenting her feet, the next health check we’re working on is beak presentations. We are working on ‘target training’ – a common technique used when working with animals that teaches them to touch a part of their body to a target so it can be looked at. With Cheyenne, we have been giving her the opportunity to ‘touch’ a clear target with the end of her beak. Again, she mastered this after only a few tries, and now she will even hold her beak on a ledge and allow me to have a really good look at her beak. To check it’s in good shape, I make sure there are no cracks or weak areas that can start to develop in birds of prey as they get older. We have worked closely to build such a strong bond, so much so she is even comfortable for me to check her nares (a name used for bird’s nostrils) and eyes too. We are going to continue to build on her fantastic work – next steps for Cheyenne will be full body presentations so we can give her health checks on her wings and legs.

She is such a brilliant bird to work with – so intelligent and fun. I am looking forward to seeing her develop more and more, and hopefully if things continue to well we can start looking at working with some of the other birds at the Trust in a similar way!”

Meet our conservation newbies

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Our Conservation and Research team is growing! Say hello to new members of the team – Conservation and Research Coordinator Jamie McKaughan and Research Assistant Stanley Kearney. Stanley and Jamie join us at an exciting time, where our conservation work is needed now more than ever to help preserve some of the worlds most threatened birds of prey. Continue reading to hear from them both.

Meet Jamie

I am really pleased to have joined the Hawk Conservancy Trust. Birds of prey have always fascinated me, with my first animal love being the Peregrine Falcon, serving as my emissary into the wildlife world!

I studied Geography at the University of Liverpool with the intention of working in environmental or wildlife project management. This was not forthcoming when I graduated, and I started working in a financial technology company becoming a project manager, with the idea the skills I learned could be transferred later. This proved to be the case when I moved to South Africa, helping to establish a new wildlife research centre, primarily focused on strategies to mitigate negative human-wildlife interactions between farmers and Chacma Baboons that were foraging in their crops.

The research centre was based near Alldays, right in the north of Limpopo province, and was predominantly a commercial farming area. I spent several years there, working in a variety of roles for both the research centre and the Primate and Predator Project (PPP). I enjoyed leading the environmental education outreach in local schools, while I also setup and coordinated a carnivore research programme in the area too. In keeping with the objectives of the PPP, the carnivore research centred around human-wildlife coexistence and the importance of animal abundance estimates. Towards the end of my time in South Africa I started a Masters project that I later expanded upon to convert into a PhD. This was focused on estimating abundance and understanding space use of mammals, such as leopards, hyaenas and baboons, typically implicated in negative coexistence events.

I see a lot of parallels between hyaena and vultures in terms of their typical standing with humans, and feel they are prime examples of just how important engaging education efforts are in fostering a greater love and understanding of these important animals, and their long-term protection. The conservation work in the field that the Trust does, both in the UK and abroad, is absolutely vital, while the conservation education delivered to our visitors by the wonderful Bird Team members and Education Team is fundamental to long-term conservation success. Being a part of delivering that message is inspiring.

I am a firm believer in evidence-based conservation, and working with integrity and honesty, all three of which I felt the Trust embodied when I applied – and now that I am here, know that they really do! I am excited to help keep pushing our conservation research forwards and raising awareness of all these amazing birds, the struggles they face, and how we can collectively help in conserving them and their habitats.

 

Meet Stanley

Having graduated from the University of Manchester with a biology degree and a broad view of natural science, I wasn’t quite sure where my career would take me. After a brief stint working in virology to aide the COVID testing effort in 2021, I realised that a career in conservation was my ideal future.

Fortunately, I was afforded an incredible opportunity to work as an intern for a research group studying kestrels in Doñana National Park – an incredible haven for birdlife in Southern Spain and one to tick off for any keen birdwatchers. I was part of a team that monitored nest boxes of Common Kestrels – the same species as our UK residents – and migratory Lesser Kestrels. The project was not dissimilar to the UK Raptor Nest Box Project that is run by the Hawk Conservancy Trust, where we have erected over 1300 boxes inhabited by Little Owls, Barn Owls, Tawny Owls, Kestrels and occasionally… squirrels!

Whilst my affection for birds was instilled in me from childhood visits to the Barnes Wetland Centre with my grandparents, this opportunity drove me to find further work in bird conservation, and I feel lucky to have found a more permanent role here at the Trust.

As a Research Assistant, I work closely with Dr Matt Stevens – our UK Conservation Biologist – helping to collect data and coordinate projects. Most recently I have helped collect data on the abundance of Red Kites and Common Buzzards, walking on transects around South East England and recording my observations. To read more about this project and our UK Raptor Nest Box Project, details can be found on our website here!

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