Last year, we were overjoyed to welcome Matilda, our first Hooded Vulture chick to hatch here at the Trust. Now at over a year old, she’s really coming in to her own. Bird Team member Owen Lincoln has began working alongside Matilda, helping her to take her first wingbeats towards joining our flying team – which he tells us all about in this month’s Bird Team Blog!

“Hello readers,

It’s with great privilege that I am writing this article all about my work alongside our Hooded Vulture chick from 2023, Matilda. Or, commonly known to the Bird Team as ‘Tilly’.

Over my near eight year career of working with birds, I have been lucky to be tasked with training a wide array of different species and family groups – ranging from Hornbills, to owls and eagles and most things in-between. However, I was yet to work with a vulture, let alone the first Hooded Vulture ever to hatch at the Hawk Conservancy Trust!

When I started working with Matilda she was around about a year of age, after living with her parents in an off-show aviary, where she would learn vital social skills from her parents. This is really important, as she will hopefully be moving in with our main team of Hooded Vultures soon, and will need to find her place within that group.

Matilda came to live with me on the section of the Trust I look after, called the Middle Section, which allowed plenty of opportunity for her to get used to me and the daily life of the Trust around her.

Once she was settled, I began going into her aviary to begin building our bond.  She was initially, understandably a bit wary of me, and was not keen to come and eat food from my glove. This continued for a few days before something clicked. Patience is always required and I realised with Matilda, that when I either sat or lay down in her aviary with food in my outstretched glove, giving her the chance to build up her confidence, she came to me when she was ready. Eventually Matilda’s fascination with my glove became apparent, as more time went on spent together, she would later comfortably hop to my outstretched glove for a tasty morsel.

As well as working towards joining the flying team, we worked on her in-aviary routine which included helping her feel comfortable with the scales. This is really important as is has allowed me to get an accurate weight and allow for health checks, necessities when flight training a young bird.

Once she mastered jumping to my glove in her aviary, and she felt confident and the bond was building, I knew it was time for our next step. We then moved Matilda to an aviary near our Savannah Arena, whilst still off-show to the daily visitors. This way she could still see all of our team walking by regularly and hear their voices. Plus, the location was also perfect to begin her taking to the skies.

We began by giving young Tilly the opportunity to walk out the aviary door, and hop to my glove each day whilst slowly getting further and further into the Savannah Arena. She’s been an absolute star, and we’re now currently as the stage where at the time of writing this article, Matilda is starting to develop her independent flying skills and confidence.  This is always a rewarding moment when working with any new bird as it really puts all those previous months of work to the test. Seeing this young vulture gain confidence and her bold personality shine through has been a real treat, and I am looking forward to introducing her to all of you throughout the winter season where she will hopefully make her first appearance in our flying displays!

Thanks for reading and I will hopefully see you all in the near future.”

“September is by far one of the best times to come and visit us at the Hawk Conservancy Trust. Although not guaranteed, there seems to be a trend of warm September days as the beginning of autumn sets in. After the excitement and exhilaration of the busy six weeks of the summer holidays, September brings a sense of calm and tranquillity; a perfect remedy to those post summer holiday blues. The Trust is bathed in glorious autumnal sun highlighting the changing colours of the trees and Reg’s’ Wildflower Meadow.

As a member of the Bird Team for many years, September has always been a particularly enjoyable period of the year for myself; it is a time to reflect on some of the highlights of the year so far.

It is always so rewarding nurturing a new member of the team and seeing their true potential unlocked. You may remember seeing the introductory videos with myself and Willow at the beginning of 2024. Willow is now a fully-fledged member of our Woodland Owl demonstration team, her development and growth over the past year has been remarkable. She is a pure joy to work alongside. James Knight from the Bird Team has had similar success with Kiara the Steller’s Sea Eagle. As the first Steller’s Sea Eagle to take to the skies as part of our demonstration team, her presence flying over Reg’s’ Wildflower Meadow is a spectacle. As one of the newest birds to the team, she does not fly everyday so if you do catch her, it is even more of a treat.

Of course, we cannot forget the introduction of our newest members of the team: a pair of Little Owls, Mozzarella and Cheddar. The pair are in the very earliest stages of training and are developing brilliantly; watch this space.

Looking forward to the autumn and winter period, we are looking forward to welcoming our visitors and Members to the exciting events this season brings. Our owl team are getting ready to fly during our popular Owls by Moonlight evenings, so you can witness these awesome predators at their very best. At the end of October the Trust gets spooky for our haunting Owl-O-Ween evenings – a special event for fans of all things spooky!

Then, before we know it, Christmas is here!  This year we have Christmas Owls by Moonlight, Christmas Carols and Owls, Father Christmas Back in Flight and our very popular Christmas Market to look forward too. Our Christmas events tend to book up fast so make sure you book up early to save disappointment.

We look forward to seeing you soon!”

Ryan Stephens, Registrar, Bird Team member.

If you’ve been to one of our flying displays, checked out our social media channels, or have even just been taking a stroll at the Trust, we’d be surprised if you hadn’t encountered Bird Team member and Events Coordinator Ben Cox. Ben’s no stranger to the spotlight, and we’re sure you’ll agree his passion for birds of prey and conserving them is infectious. We caught up with Ben to hear about a different side to his job – being on camera!

“I am extremely lucky to get to do what I absolutely love every single day of the year. The main part of my job is helping to organise all of the wonderful events we do here around the calendar year, flying birds in displays or experience days, commentating our flying displays, and of course the day-to-day care of our amazing birds. However, I would like to share a little insight into another part of my job which I absolutely adore: creating content for our social media platforms.

We are very fortunate here at the Trust to have a phenomenal team made up of many different departments, who all put in their best efforts for the same goal – the conservation of birds of prey. As part of this team we have a fantastic Marketing Department which, among many things, allows us to have a brilliant social media presence and connect with a wide audience around the world. This is absolutely vital for us as we want to spread our message and mission of conserving birds of prey with as many people as we possibly can. Conservation cannot be done in isolation, and we know we cannot achieve our mission alone. We need lots of other people to help us. This is where our social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Facebook are so important for helping to connect with people everywhere.

We want to inspire people into falling in love with birds of prey. Creating content that showcases our birds in the best light is so important to us, as they are the true stars of everything we do. Now it would be no secret to say that even from a young age, I’ve always loved being in front of a camera! So it really is an absolute privilege to share what I love to do with millions of people around the world: promoting birds of prey and educating about the threats they face at every opportunity. I love to share my passion for these amazing animals – they are all just so different and have their own personalities that shine through in our videos and photos.

Although we plan what content we’d like to create, we have found that sometimes the spontaneous moments captured on camera are the best! Recently we have had a video of Angola, our Secretary Bird, and myself that we shared on TikTok go viral. The video is currently sitting at thirteen and a half million views! This has been absolutely mind blowing – some here at the Trust have even given me a new nickname…the “TikTok Sensation”. This situation is a very good example of how powerful social media can be. Through this one video, which is no more than 30 seconds I might add, we have connected with over thirteen million people who have now hopefully discovered our mission and been inspired to help us conserve birds of prey all around the world.

@hawkconservancytrust A sssssuper #FridayFact coming at you from Bird Team member Ben and our amazing Secretary Bird, Angola! 🐍🦎 #secretarybird #birdsofprey #bird #birdtok #birdsoftiktok #animalsoftiktok #hawkconservancytrust #hampshire ♬ Mr. Fox in the Fields – Jenny Lin

It is a very rewarding feeling indeed,  and it’s such a fun part of the job. When you start to film a video with the birds you never quite know what antics they might get up to, which makes it so exciting. I absolutely adore going through all the outtakes I’ve taken over the years – as you can imagine there are rarely one-take-wonders when filming with the birds!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who follow and support us on our social media platforms. It is very much appreciated by all of us here at the Trust, especially the birds we work with, and those that we are doing all we can to conserve in the wild. If you are not following any of our social media then why not?! Get started now; get regular updates on our birds, see sneak peeks and behind the scenes footage all about we are getting up to here at the Trust, and hear about our conservation work all around the world.

Social media is also a fantastic education tool, where you can be inspired by these magnificent birds and discover so many new things that you never knew before. One of my favourite videos to film for social media is our weekly “Friday Fact” – bite-sized facts about a different species of bird of prey every single week. We learn new things every day, so why not join us to find out something new about birds of prey every week?

Keep an eye out for us and I promise we will continue to share our passion about birds of prey with you!”

Last month, we shared the exciting news of our newest arrivals: Little Owls, Cheddar and Mozzarella. Since arriving in May, they are now almost fully grown, and their personalities are really starting to shine! We chatted to Deputy Head of Living Collection, Tom Morath, who has spent much of this past month working alongside this adorable pair, about what it’s like working with them both.

“It’s always an exciting time when we welcome new birds to the Hawk Conservancy Trust and this is especially true when those birds are still just chicks. Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the great privilege of watching two Little Owl owlets change from tiny bundles of white down into fully grown youngsters.

We’ve raised young owls here before of course – many regular visitors will be familiar with birds like Sweeney Todd, our Snowy Owl, Wispa our Boobook Owl and Troy our Tawny Owl for example. Each of these birds have started out life here at the Trust, spending as much time with members of our team here as possible to ensure that, when they grow up, they feel as comfortable and confident around us as possible.

But these Little Owls, along with changes in our working protocols, presented us with a challenge. In order to limit the risk of diseases finding their way into the Trust, we have put in place more thorough processes for any new animals arriving here.

During their initial period, five members of the team started working with them in rotation – making sure that any potential cross contamination between these new owls was kept to minimum by wearing a white lab coat, shoe covers and gloves. We all felt like we were in an episode of Holby City! Luckily for me I was one of them! They needed feeding around the clock with the first being as early at 7am and the latest at around 9pm. It’s an opportunity to consider just how hard the parent birds would have to work in the wild – these Little Owls were regularly consuming one third of their own body weight in food. Imagine having three or even four mouths to feed around the clock. They need to eat so much food because of their fast growth rate – at 2 months they are practically fully grown and as I type this I can’t quite believe that the two owls in the aviary just outside are the same birds I welcomed here as fluff-balls just a few short weeks ago.

Watching them at the very start of their journey (they were just 60 grams when they first arrived here!) was a joy. In the first week they lived in heated accommodation in our Hospital Annex in an ice-cream tub together, surrounded by rolled up towels. At this time, they could only just about keep their eyes open to feed before they would, with a full belly, sleep off their breakfast, lunch, tea or supper. Over time they’ve become more active – graduating from their ice-cream tub to larger accommodation. In a matter of a couple of weeks they could thermoregulate (maintain their own body temperature) and start to explore the big wide world around them. They’ve recently moved into an aviary where you can come to say hello to them after being given a full routine health check by our specialist vet.

At about six weeks old they made their debut – starring in many of our Brilliant Bird Brains sessions. A talk we hold every day in the summer at the Trust, Brilliant Bird Brains offers us the opportunity to present a more intimate deep dive into how we work with one of our birds in particular. It’s usually an individual member of the team (or sometimes a group) that is undertaking a little extra training or could do with a small audience to help them prepare for being in displays. What better way to begin our Little Owl’s lives here as ambassadors for their species.  Our Conservation and Research team focus some of their work with Little Owls.  Dr Matt Stevens, our UK Conservation Biologist, has installed and monitors nest boxes for Little Owls across southern England.  You can read more about this project here.

Over the course of the next few months I hope you can join us as we watch their journey to becoming fully fledged members of our flying team – every member of the Bird Team is excited to be working with them. You can expect to see them beginning to make appearances in the Woodland Owls display as soon as they’re ready – we hope before the end of the summer holidays.”

Photo: Ollie Thompson/Solent News & Photo Agency

If you visited us last summer, you may have been lucky enough to spot Fawkes, our Wahlberg’s Eagle, soaring over Reg’s Wildflower Meadow. She is a beautiful but sensitive bird, and is very selective as to who she chooses to work alongside on our Bird Team. Ronnie Hunter has been working closely with Fawkes since 2022 – carry on reading to hear from Ronnie all about this wonderful bird.

“Wahlberg’s Eagles are Africa’s smallest eagle species and whilst they may not look remarkable from a distance; their beauty is all in the details. Their feathers have a variety of deep chocolate browns and honey beige tones which change and settle as they get older. They’re ‘booted’, meaning their feathers run all the way down their legs and stop just above the feet giving the appearance of wearing trousers! They have a crest that they use as a form of nonverbal communication. Most people will picture a bird’s crest as ornate curled feathers like a cockatoo or elongated feathers creating a crown like a Harpy eagle; the Wahlberg’s Eagle crest is neither of these. Instead, they have just a few feathers on the top of their head that are slightly longer than the rest and when raised, creates a small triangle crest.

Fawkes hatched on the 24 November 2017 weighing in at just 40 grams and was hand reared by Bird Team member Jane Robertson. You can still see Fawkes’ egg shell if you visit the National Bird of Prey Hospital™ during your next visit! Fawkes was hand reared because her parents lost interest in incubation and at the time there were no suitable foster parents available to raise her. She didn’t have an easy start to life: battling mild infections at just a couple of months old, but she soon made a full recovery and joined the flying team.

Fawkes is a sensitive eagle. She isn’t very fond of loud noise, bright colours, vehicles or other birds – particularly corvids and buzzards. She also very much decides for herself which members of the Bird Team she is willing to work alongside here at the Trust. When I first started working at the Trust, Fawkes was still figuring out who she would like to work with after her parental figure, Jane, transitioned away from working on site with the birds to a different role offsite. I was very fortunate to have worked closely with a Wahlberg’s Eagle at a previous job so asked if I could test the waters with Fawkes. Turns out the Wahlberg’s Eagle I had previously worked with is Fawkes’ half-sister! Fortunately for me, Fawkes almost instantly accepted me as her new flying partner and over the past couple of years we have been working on Fawkes’ confidence and flying skills. Last year we were often involved in parts of the daily timetable at the Trust, including   ‘Masters of the Sky’, one of our displays. Having been hand reared, Fawkes has had to rely purely on her own instinct when it comes to learning how to fly like an eagle and it takes a long time for some birds to gain confidence in doing so. Even now she sometimes scares herself by flying too fast because she misjudges the wind. Fawkes’ next step this year is to work on developing bonds with other members of the Bird Team so that more of us get to enjoy working with her.

If you’ve ever been lucky enough to step into our burrow on a Meet the Burrowers VIP Encounter, you will have become closer than you might have expected to our cheeky team of Burrowing Owls! Someone who knows these owls better than most is Bird Team member Patrick King, who heads up the Burrowing Owl section at the Trust. We heard from Patrick what it’s like working alongside these mischievous birds.

“No day is quite the same with our wonderful Burrowing Owl squad! As a smaller, more delicate species, our Burrowing Owls have an overnight bay that they can keep warm in. My first job in the morning is to check on the owls – what a way to start the day! I usually walk in, turn the lights on and say good morning to each owl, checking to make sure they’re ready for the day ahead.

At this point in the day they’re really animated – they know breakfast is coming! But first things first, each owl is weighed to make sure they’re as fit and healthy as can be. One by one the owls come out of their bay and sit on the scales before heading into their cosy travel box and tucking into some food.

Once they’ve had time to eat their breakfast, they are picked up in their travel box and carried to their aviary, which I have prepared for them earlier. Once in the aviary, they’re free to chill out and do what they’d like, which is usually having a good dig! Diamondback and Coral have a routine which they seem to enjoy carrying out every day, where they take a dip in their water bowl, drink some water together, and spend a good ten minutes preening!

While they relax in the aviary, I then have the important but unglamorous job of cleaning out their night bays. Burrowing Owls by nature tend to burrow, which means there’s usually a bit of work to do to clean up their mess!

I love working with all of our Burrowing Owls. Amongst the group of six there’s a whole mix of personalities. It’s nice to have the sense that the feeling is mutual – this group seem to have taken a liking to me too, and there’s a mutual trust between us all. They are such quirky little birds, and I could honestly watch them for hours to see all their funny antics. I love watching people meet them all in our Meet the Burrowers VIP Encounters – it’s nice to see how captivated people can be by such little birds.”

Meet Diamondback

“Diamondback is a laid back chap and a really lovely owl. He’s fairly reserved, so keeps himself out of trouble. Often when I am working in their aviary he will come up to say hello, politely getting his beak stuck in to find out what I’m up to. Sometimes he even flies up to land on my shoulder while I am working! His favourite thing to do is explore what’s in the buckets I carry – usually just tidied away sticks and leaves, but it fascinates him nonetheless. Diamondback and Coral are a close pair which is always lovely to see.”

Meet Coral

“I would describe Coral as a bit of a rogue. She is a lovely little owl, but does what she wants and when she wants to do it! Once she’s put her mind to something, there’s no convincing her otherwise. During our Meet the Burrowers VIP Encounters Coral can be one of the most engaging owls, landing all around and on our guests to say hello. However, she can also be completely uninterested, perfectly happy to make a brief appearance before settling down to chew on some grasses. Speaking of which, we have recently discovered her complete fascination for lettuce, which we’re working to capture on camera as it’s just so unique! She does also have a close bond to Diamondback, and looks out for him if Sidewinder gets a bit bolshie.”

Meet Sidewinder

“Sidewinder is definitely the most confident member of the team. He thinks he runs the entire Hawk Conservancy Trust, let alone the Burrowing Owl troop! He is the largest of our Burrowing Owls, and apparently knows it. You’ll often hear him demonstrating his territorial call, showing off to anybody nearby just how amazing he is. Sidewinder certainly lives up to his Burrowing Owl name – he is the biggest digger of the group. He is always working on a new tunnel, and no matter how many times I fill in the holes he makes there’s always another excavation of his to fill in at the end of the day!”

Meet Cottonmouth

“Cottonmouth is a very pleasant lady…when you’re in her good books! Now I’m out of earshot of her I can definitely describe her as a bit of a diva. If my cleaning in the aviary is not up to her standards she’ll make it very clear, gathering all of the missed helicopter seeds and any leaf litter she can find into a little pile to present back to me. She’s very investigative and likes to keep all the plants in their aviary looking to her liking, which in other words means she’ll happily shred and tear all the plants up if I don’t keep an eye on her!”

Meet Rattle and Rainbow

“Rainbow and Rattle are our younger pair of Burrowing Owls. They live in the separate half of the aviary to the rest of the team, as with all siblings there’d be too much arguing if they were all together!

Rattle reminds me very much of a young Sidewinder – an extroverted and dominant little owl. His favourite activity is shredding up the paper that we use to line his night bay. I can only describe his bay each morning as chaos! He shares these digs with Rainbow, who is a little more reserved than him. Not that that doesn’t mean Rainbow won’t often be found at the centre of mischief himself! They are both brilliant owls, and as our younger pair we are working alongside them at their own pace to introduce them onto quieter VIP Encounter sessions, and maybe more into the future!”

Flying in all the way from Ohio, USA, we’re excited to introduce you to the newest member of our Bird Team! Jillian Varner joined us this spring, excited to bring her experience in animal care and conservation to the Trust, and has previously worked as a keeper, educator and animal trainer. We caught up with Jillian to get to know her a bit more…

“Thank you so much for welcoming me onto the Hawk Conservancy Trust team! I am so excited to begin my next adventure with such a wonderful group of people (and birds!).

I graduated from Ohio University in 2014 with a BA in Integrated Language Arts with the intent of teaching English Literature. However, I was drawn back to my first true passion – animals. I began volunteering at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens, eventually taking on a few different positions within their Education Department. This is where I discovered how rewarding it is to teach about the importance of wildlife and conservation (even when a class decides to name a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach after you!).

I then went on to work in the “Surfin’ Safari” display at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Here I was fortunate to work directly with a variety of species, both as a keeper and trainer. While featuring species such as kangaroos, toucans, and binturongs, the display had another educational aspect as well – the adoption of domestic cats and dogs. To showcase that they are wonderful, capable animals deserving of homes, we would care for these cats and dogs from local shelters, and work with them to learn complex behaviours. Sadly, the show closed due to COVID-19, but we were happily able to place our 25 dogs and 40 cats with loving homes to live out their retirement!

Having recently relocated from the United States to here in England, I am so thankful that I am able to continue working so closely with animals. I am excited to begin working with the birds of prey here at the Hawk Conservancy Trust, and getting to learn about a whole new range of native species! I hope my experience working with other animals will be beneficial for the birds here, and I look forward to learning all I can from the fantastic Bird Team members.

A top priority in each of my previous roles has been inspiring others to protect our wildlife. The focus on conservation and helping people to better appreciate birds like vultures is such an important mission, and the Trust is truly excelling in this area. In the few weeks that I have been here I have already seen such amazing teamwork from the staff and volunteers, and I’m so glad to be a part of this unique and great organisation!”

Be sure to say hello to Jillian if you see her on your next visit to the Trust!

Bird Team member Jennie Marshall is currently undertaking the Level 3 Zookeeper and Aquarist Apprenticeship, and is now in her second year! Jennie is learning about a range of topics on her apprenticeship, and not just about birds of prey. From legislation to training, to conservation and the roles of zoo and aquarium collections. We caught up with her to hear a little more about what she’s been up to recently…

“One of my modules involves studying the behaviour of the birds in our care, monitoring for their health and behaviour to ensure they have the best welfare possible. To do this, I have been carrying out ethograms, which is a model of recording types of behaviour at regular intervals over a set period of time.

I have mainly been working with Angus and Satara on this – one of our breeding pairs of White-headed Vultures. Since the destruction of their aviary due to Storm Eunice in 2022, the pair have been living behind-the-scenes in an off-show aviary in a quieter part of the grounds. To help them become settle in to their new surroundings and keep their clever minds active, we have been providing them with lots of activities, known as ‘enrichment’ activities. As part of the course, I carried out ethograms both with and without the enrichment in their aviary so we could compare to see if they interacted with it and how their behaviour changes.

Tasked with creating this enrichment, I wanted to create a device that would help them to display the natural behaviour that they would have if in the wild. With the help of our Head of Conservation, Research and Education, Dr Campbell Murn, I explored what these vultures would spend their time and energy on in the wild, and why.

Although White-headed Vultures have not been widely studied so there is limited information about them, we do know that this species spend a lot of their time in the wild resting and conserving their energy. However, this species of vulture is one of the only species recorded to show predatory behaviour, actually perusing and hunting their prey on occasion in a collaborative way and not just purely scavenging from carcasses. I wanted to see if I could recreate their collaborative behaviour with a device that encouraged Angus and Satara to work together.

I built a device that hid a nice piece of their dinner underneath a static stick pile, hoping they would work together to remove the sticks from the puzzle to get their food. This would replicate their natural exploratory behaviour too – something seen when they feed on carcass to remove body parts and sometimes stick their head inside to get to hard-to-reach pieces!

When the time came to see what Angus and Satara thought of my invention, I carried out five ethograms with them, during different times of the day and in different weather conditions to gather as much information as possible. After placing the device in their aviary, I began recording their behaviour.

At first, they were both a bit unsure of what to make of it! Satara was first to come down from her perches to give this box a close-up inspection. She managed to work alone to solve the puzzle and move the sticks, however Angus saw an opportunity and then came down to eat the dinner! Satara, being the most confident of the pair, wasn’t going to let him get away with that, and in the end figured out it was easier to take the food back from Angus, which is what she did!

We’re always working hard behind the scenes to make sure that they are as fit and healthy as they can be – and enrichment activities for them really help us with this. Whether is a puzzle box to keep their minds active, a new way of feeding them, or even just a new feature of their aviary, investigating a new object or working out a new device means they are keeping their minds and body active.”

If you hadn’t heard the news, last year we welcomed a beautiful new Barn Owl to the Hawk Conservancy Trust! Willow has been spending her time getting to know Bird Team member, Registrar and resident owl-whisperer Ryan Stephens, and they are really beginning to grow close. We caught up with Ryan to find out how she’s getting on, and her next steps towards taking part in flying displays.

“Willow arrived at the Trust in April last year and is a spritely three years old. If you have heard the commentaries given by our expert Bird Team members, you will know we usually begin to get to know our owls from their early days as owlets. Willow, however, has come to live with us a little later in her life after being an ambassador for Barn Owls at a wildlife rescue centre.

After she had spent a few months settling into her new home here and meeting all of our Bird Team, Willow and I began working together to begin the initial stages of her training to join our displays last summer.

Barn Owls have a graceful flying style called ‘quartering’, where they will glide over wide open spaces such as fields and meadows and use their extraordinary hearing for listening intently for their prey. When they have found something to hunt, they will silently hover in the air above before pouncing. This unique style of flight is what Willow and I are working towards.

Our work together began in our Meet the Burrowers VIP Encounter space, where Willow was able to get to know me a little better outside of her aviary. She progressed into flying in our Woodland Arena, where we focused mainly on flights back and forth between myself and another member of the Bird Team, helping to build her fitness. It didn’t take very long to see she was comfortable doing this, so we are now working in the wider space of our Savannah Arena together, where her flights are getting longer and she is gradually demonstrating her quartering and hovering skills.

Building the trust between myself and Willow takes time and patience, and I always feel a sense of excitement when I begin working with a newer member of the team. In recent years, I have formed a very close bond with Ravenclaw, our White-headed Vulture who wowed our guests over the summer in our new Masters of the Sky flying display. Now Ravenclaw is soaring high, I have been able to focus on really getting to know Willow over the last year. With my other commitments as the Trust’s Registrar that can be quite desk-based, so spending that little bit of time with Willow is one of my favourite parts of the day.

She is already fantastic in flight, and it will be amazing to see her develop over time and our bond grows. She is a real superstar in the making, and hopefully you may start to see Willow making special appearances in our daily timetable in 2024, and maybe even some of our evening events too! We are taking things slowly, all at Willow’s pace. All I will say is ‘watch this space’ – I am very excited for Willow to shine!”