Over the years, our 22 acres have grown and developed into an award-winning visitor attraction, surrounded by wonderous wildlife. Having worked at the Trust for over 20 years, Bird Team Member and Head of Flying Birds Mike Riley has been there for many of these exciting developments. We caught up with Mike to hear all about the next area of the Trust to have a revamp – our Woodland Arena!

“Well autumn is upon us again, and it’s the time of year where some of our birds will rest for the winter months, and some will begin their flying season.

Making sure that our birds are comfortable is our top priority, with any changes we make.  As we swap the birds around to prepare the winter birds for this time of year, we make sure that our team are ready to go for our daily winter flying displays, experience sessions, and Behind-The-Scenes VIP Winter Experiences – as well as their understudy’s should the birds choose they don’t want to fly for whatever reason! This allows them to take it in turns.

As some of you may know, even the slightest change can cause a stir for some of our starring celebrities, especially in the owl world, and we’ve had a number of hurdles to cross already this year. More on that in a little bit!

Not only are we managing this changeover of which birds are flying and who’s resting, we’re also working hard around the Trust. If you’ve been a regular visitor throughout the year, you’ll hopefully have seen that at the start of the 2024 season we started new work in the Woodland Arena. The large pond, which used to be home to our two seals Cockle and Clam way back in the 1960’s, has now been filled in. This gives us a much larger arena to move around in while working with our birds.

You may also have noticed a large concrete structure has appeared at the bottom left of the arena, where work has been in progress for the last couple of months. This is a surprise so I can’t tell you what it is, but what I can say is that it is all part of something new for 2025.

We’re looking to start further work on this during our two closed periods in November and January. As we move into winter, January is always an interesting month for any work that we undertake.  Whatever we’re doing also has to fit around our Winter Woodland lights extravaganza, which runs from Friday 17 January to Sunday 2 February next year.

During these closed periods, working with the birds and their routines continues and we carefully get them used to any changes within the Woodland Arena as the work continues by our amazing team of volunteers. One of our most dedicated volunteers who helps us at this time is Viv Broughton.  If you don’t know Viv, he’s the creative mastermind and builder behind the six new themed aviaries around the edge of the Woodland Arena, which are amazing to say the least!

We have been working closely with our birds to make sure they are comfortable with the building work in the woods, and will continue to do so when the new lighting and sound system is installed for Winter Woodland Lights. Even though we’ve done the Winter Woodland lights for a number of years now, we still make sure the owls are used to all the new set up all over again. As their daily routines don’t usually involve so much extra equipment being around, sometimes it’s like they have never seen it before.

For Troy the Tawny Owl, this was the case when we upgraded to a new sound system in the Woodland Arena earlier this year. The new system controls the commentator’s headsets and all the music with new speakers hidden within the trees and log piles. After installing these, Troy decided he just wouldn’t fly over towards any of the speakers, and created his own routes through the trees, keeping all the Bird Team on their toes!

One tree in particular, known as ‘Troy’s Tree’, is central in the arena. It has been nicknamed ‘Troy’s Tree’, as it’s the final tree Troy flies to during the Woodland Owls display before heading off for home. After the new speakers were installed, he refused to land in it! We’ve adapted things to work around him and he flies home from a different position. Perhaps he can hear a different sound or frequency which he isn’t used to. But, as is the case with all of our birds, he’s the boss, so we’ve found ways to work with what suits him best so that he’s happy in his routine.

It will be interesting to see how Molly, our Eurasian Eagle-Owl reacts to the new set up, as it’s her first time starring in this event. She takes it in turns to fly in our routines with Cinnamon, our Siberian Eagle-Owl. Cinnamon usually takes the limelight for Winter Woodland Lights, and this will be her first year joining the flying team for this event, so we will be working closely with her to make sure she’s happy with these new additions in our arena.

We’ve got quite a number of events over the next few months and the team know there’s a lot of work that goes into making sure the birds are happy with the changes to their routine. But by careful training and planning, we’re confident things will run smoothly.

So, keep updated on the website for more details to come about these exciting new changes for next year, and do keep coming along to see first-hand how we’re developing the Woodland Arena.”

Small mammals (for example rodents) make up a high proportion of the diet of UK birds of prey. For the last few years, the Conservation and Research team at the Hawk Conservancy Trust have carried out small mammal surveys at both on-site and at two local external sites in Hampshire to estimate prey availability and abundance, which are key for a successful breeding season. These sites are chosen based on locations of regularly used nest boxes that are monitored as part of our Raptor Nest Box Project.  With Kestrel numbers declining across the country, we are particularly interested in their main prey species, the Field Vole. Nevertheless, we record all mice, voles and shrews we catch and release throughout a season.

In this study, we set traps overnight which have lots of cosy bedding and plenty of food in them to ensure they are safe, warm and well fed! We then return first thing the following morning to check whether there are any visitors. If we are lucky, we gently handle them to take a few body measurements, helping to identify which species they are. After a few minutes, we release them safe and sound right back to where they were found.

This year, after a late start in mid-July, we had hoped to fit in two rounds of surveying at all three of our sites (one round takes a week). Sadly, due to large amounts of rain, the season had to be shortened. When it rains, the bedding can become wet and cold turning the experience into a slightly less comfortable stay for any small mammals using the traps. This meant we only managed to survey at our external sites once, but managed to do two rounds here at the Trust, which had surprisingly high numbers this year!

In total, we caught 62 small mammals over four rounds of trapping; 50 were caught here at the Trust, but we had two sessions here compared to just the one at each of the other sites. It was interesting to note a difference between the two weeks at the Trust, catching 14 small mammals the first round and 36 in the next round. Interestingly, across all three sites, we caught relatively even numbers of shrews, voles and mice species across the survey period, but the winner for the highest numbers was the Common Shrew (18) closely followed by the Field Vole (13)!

We also encountered six false triggers, where the trap door was closed but nothing was inside, which were either due to traps malfunctioning, or rather tactful small mammals evading the trigger panel! As a result, we made sure to look for signs of small mammal visitation; signs of nibbling on the food, faeces and burrowing in bedding, which can also be useful to know that something had visited regardless.

We spoke to our Conservation and Research Intern Mathilde Ducroz, and new Research Assistant Tanith Jones, for their thoughts on their first real experience working on small mammal research:

Mathilde:
Having worked with wild birds previously, I expected the small mammals to be easier to work with. I was very wrong! Despite them not being able to fly away, their speed, jumping and impressive contortion skills (voles, mice and shrews have loose skin that enables them to twist around) make them the expert escape artists and incredibly hard to handle. A rodent or shrew will take any exit it can see, including running up your colleague’s sleeve and back, which made for a memorable situation!

Small mammals are an essential part of ecosystems and are the source of food of many mammals and birds but, apart from the occasional house mouse or rat, are seldom seen by many people. It felt very special to have such a close up encounter of these little creatures. Differentiating between the species proved quite the challenge at the start, especially between Bank and Field Vole. After spotting a few of them, the distinction became more obvious, with tail length a good indicator: approximately one third of body length for Field Voles against half of the body length for Bank Voles.

Tanith:
I have never worked directly with small mammals in the past and my only experience of monitoring them has been using indirect techniques, such as processing owl pellets. Learning how to hold them, how the traps work, set-up and maintenance as well as building upon identification skills, meant no two days were the same over the summer. I came to learn how nimble and agile these small mammals can be, and I have a newfound respect for how our birds of prey are able to hunt them with so much grace and precision!

With many high points as well as some challenges across this survey period, I am looking forward to approaching the next season with what I have learnt. Small mammal surveying is a great way to see what prey species are in the area and how this could potentially impact the breeding season of birds of prey across our countryside.