Would you like the chance to become a helper to the Bird Team for the day and help us raise some money at the same time? (more…)
Would you like the chance to become a helper to the Bird Team for the day and help us raise some money at the same time? (more…)
The seven acres of chalk downland was created in 1995 and named in memory of the Trust’s founder, Reg Smith. As well as being a stunning location to enjoy, Reg’s Wildflower Meadow, represents one of the greatest conservation achievements of the Hawk Conservancy Trust. It is a habitat of incredible diversity and is listed in the National Biodiversity Action Plan as one of 65 habitats that are a priority for conservation. English chalk downland meadow is rarer than tropical rainforest. (more…)
Get children excited about birds of prey with our fun and educational activity sheets.
We wanted to keep you updated with how things are going at the Trust during the closed period due to COVID-19. We have been completely overwhelmed by the wonderful support we have received from our supporters, members, visitors, staff and volunteers. We have always known that we have a loyal following, but it is only during times like these that we really, truly realise the magic of our community.
With the government’s announcement on Monday 23 March 2020 regarding COVID-19, the Trust is closed for the foreseeable future. It is vital to reduce the spread of this terrible virus and keep our visitors, staff and volunteers as safe and healthy as possible. Rest assured that we have measures in place to make sure our birds are well-cared for while we are closed; that is our top priority.
In order to do that, we need to do our best to ensure we have a strong and healthy Bird Team to take care of our birds, themselves and their families. Gary Benton, our Head of Living Collection, has devised a rota that ensures social distancing between the team members whilst caring for our birds.
It is very difficult to plan during this period of uncertainty, as we simply don’t know when we will be able to re-open. However, we wanted to reassure you that we will honour any purchases you have made and any ongoing commitments you have with us.
We appreciate that this is an extremely troublesome time for personal budgets. In order to help you stay with us during these tricky times, we are making the following commitments.
Admission tickets
If you have a voucher for a visit to the Trust, we will extend the length of this ticket by six months. There is no need to contact us, your tickets will now be valid for 18 months from the date of purchase instead of 12 months. Simply bring the tickets you have with you to the Trust when you visit.
Members
We are so grateful for the support we receive from our members and we will miss seeing the regular faces at the Trust. If you already have membership with us, we will extend your membership for the period we are closed. There’s no need for you to do anything, we will calculate the closed period (when we re-open) and extend your membership by altering your renewal date. The extended period will be added to the end of your membership free of charge, so if you pay by monthly direct debit, your payments will stop at the end of your membership yet your membership will still be valid. This will be the same for Annual Members and Off-peak Members.
Experiences and Encounter Vouchers
If you already have a voucher for an experience or Meet the Burrowers VIP Encounter including admission, we will extend this for an additional 6 months. There is no need for you to contact us, we will update this on our system and extend the expiry date.
Experiences and Encounters – Booked onto a date in March or April
If you are already booked to join one of our experiences or a Meet the Burrowers VIP Encounter dated in March or April, a member of our team will contact you to re-book you onto a future date. Please bear with us, our team are working through the list in date order and contacting each customer. If it becomes apparent that we will be closed beyond the end of April, we will contact those customers with bookings in May onwards to re-book them onto future dates.
Events
We have cancelled our Owls By Moonlight events that take place in the spring, if you were booked onto these dates, our team will contact you to re-book you onto one of our autumn dates. At this stage, we are unsure which other events we will be able to go ahead with and which we need to cancel. If you are booked onto an event and we need to cancel, we will contact you to work out a solution with you.
Half-price tickets expiring 31 March 2020
If you have purchased half-price tickets and have not managed to use them due to COVID-19 restrictions/closure, you can use these tickets during the month of October 2020 only (1-31 inclusive). After 31 October 2020, we will not be able to extend any of these tickets for further use.
Adoptions
We are very grateful to those who have adopted our birds, both as a premium adoption or a standard adoption. Please be assured that whilst we are closed, your adoption fee will continue to go towards the care of your adopted bird. This is particularly appreciated, as we will see a huge reduction of money coming into the Trust from paying visitors during the closed period.
If you have not used your admission ticket that comes with your standard adoption or met your adopted bird as part of the premium adoption, we will extend the validity of your admission tickets for the length of the period we are closed.
Further questions
Inevitably, you will have questions that we haven’t managed to answer, or if your circumstances have changed, please don’t hesitate to contact us. At the moment, our office team are trying to set things up so that they can work from home, so please contact us via email on info@hawkconservancy.org.
We’re making changes to our website over the next few days and weeks to accommodate for these changes. There may be sections that don’t look quite as you might expect; if you get stuck at all, please email us at the above address or check back on the website in a few days time.
How can you help us?
We have been overwhelmed by the support and understanding we have received, thank you. Some of you have asked us to share information on how you can help support the Trust over the coming months. We are hoping and planning to re-open later in the year and welcome back our visitors, members and supporters with open arms, so the big ask from us is to stick with us. Please come back when we re-open.
Please stay with us on social media and keep our community alive. We love seeing your comments and they lift our spirits too! We will keep you updated with our beautiful birds and let you know about our conservation and research work.
If you are able to and would like to help us during this difficult period, you can donate via our website. As well as looking after our birds and staff, we have ongoing conservation and research costs and will continue to receive wild birds in our National Bird of Prey Hospital™.
If you would like to reserve your little bit of the Trust experience, for something to look forward to when we re-open, you can buy open, un-dated vouchers to exchange for experiences and day tickets in the future. If you choose to buy membership now, even though we’re closed, we will extend the length of your membership to allow for the closure period. All of this can be done via our website. We are updating website to allow for these changes. We thank you for your patience if the site doesn’t run as smoothly as usual.
If you use Amazon.co.uk, please instead head to smile.amazon.co.uk and select the Hawk Conservancy Trust as your chosen charity. It doesn’t cost any more money and has provided us with several hundred pounds in the last year.
It’s not easy for any of us to cope with the circumstances we’re facing. Look after yourselves and each other and enjoy the wildlife where it’s safe.
Due to the government guidelines on social distancing, we’ll be closing the Trust for the foreseeable future. We feel we need to do our bit to help reduce the spread of this terrible virus and keep our visitors, staff and volunteers as safe and healthy as possible. Rest assured that we have measures in place to make sure our birds are well-cared for; that is our top priority.
In order to do that, we need to do our best to ensure we have a strong and healthy bird team to take care of our birds, themselves and their families. We’re sure you will have many questions for us, and as so much is unknown at the moment, we don’t have all the answers, however, we’re working hard to figure them out.
We pride ourselves on keeping our customers happy and we will do our best to answer your questions in the days and weeks ahead. We will post regularly on our website and social media pages as new information becomes available. If you have bookings with us, we’ll be in touch to rearrange them. If you have expiry dates, we post more information about what we’ll do about them for you. We’ll do our utmost to take care of you. In the meantime please bear with us if we aren’t as responsive as usual.
We have been over-whelmed by the support and understanding we have received over the last week and we thank you for your understanding. It’s not easy for any of us to cope with the circumstances we’re facing. Look after yourselves and each other and enjoy the wildlife where it’s safe.
We are extremely proud of the work we do in our National Bird of Prey Hospital™; we continue to deliver an excellent record in Bird of Prey rehabilitation. Our Hospital Manager Cedric Robert along with our vet John Chitty, members of the Bird Team, and dedicated volunteers work tirelessly to ensure the wild birds admitted to the Hospital receive the best care possible. 2019 was no exception; with approximately 60% of cases concluding in a successful rehabilitation and release back into the wild! Here are our highlights from the year: (more…)
Back in September our Head of Development, Andy Hinton, and Bird Team member, Ben Cox, headed out to South Africa for our annual conservation field trip to Dronfield Nature Reserve, near Kimberley in the Northern Cape. They also spent some time in Mokala National Park and were lucky enough to take a trip to the Kalahari Desert in northern South Africa. This trip is bittersweet for those who attend. (more…)
As part of our International Vulture Awareness Day celebrations we invited you to take part in our Creative Competition. (more…)