On the evening of Friday 1st December the Friends of Sculthorpe Moor (FOSM) held an evening of entertainment at Fakenham Racecourse in memory of wildlife filmmaker and supporter of Sculthorpe Moor Nature Reserve, David Cobham and used the event to present Hawk and Owl Trust with a cheque for £18,500 towards its Sculthorpe Fen Land Purchase Appeal.
The evening was spent with Lloyd Buck, a bird trainer for wildlife documentary film-making and research, and his wife Rose, recounting fascinating anecdotes from their career raising and training birds.
The audience was delighted that many of the real avian stars were brought along, including the majestic Tilly a Golden Eagle, and Rudi, a well-known Peregrine, star of many wildlife films – although the five Starlings and Bran the Raven caused hilarity by going rather ‘off-script’.
A packed Prince of Wales stand at Fakenham racecourse was treated to a wonderful evening of warmly and entertainingly recounted tales of Lloyd and Rose Bucks life with the birds that they raise and train.
Many of the birds have had starring roles in various wildlife documentaries and a number of them were brought along.
The evening started with short films showing the process of raising a number of goslings, including having them sleep in the bed to get them imprinted on Rose so that they would follow her once they had grown.
A sequence filmed with David Attenborough was shown, featuring a flock of geese flying alongside the boat starred these geese.
The Barn Owl was the first live bird to be introduced to the audience and she happily flew amongst the audience – landing on the bar at one point! She was followed by Rudi, a very well-known Peregrine who has starred in a number of documentaries including ‘Super Fast Falcon’.
Other birds of prey were introduced and then Lloyd and Rose brought in their five trained Starlings, which all had great fun flying (and walking!) amongst the audience searching for meal worms.
In the second half Tilly the Golden Eagle, who often flies with a camera on her back and elderly Sasha the Tawny Eagle met the audience before Lloyd brought in Bran the Raven.
Bran displayed his incredible intelligence by quickly solving 3 complex problems, but then got a bit bored and disappeared behind the screen where he found a pen pot and started throwing the pens out one at a time! Having completed that he ‘mugged’ Lloyd, stealing all the food from his pouch!
During the break Dr Piers Reinhold, chairman of FOSM presented Nigel Middleton, Warden of Sculthorpe Moor Nature Reserve, with a cheque for £18,500 raised by FOSM through their fundraising events, towards the Sculthorpe Fen Land Purchase Appeal, which had also received a £100,000 boost earlier in the week by the local LEP Growing Places Fund and is waiting to hear this week about its HLF funding bid.
Sculthorpe Moor Nature Reserve is known nationally for its wildlife, sympathetic and effective management techniques and accessibility to all. The Hawk and Owl Trust, with its national headquarters based at Sculthorpe, is currently in the process of raising £850,00 as part of a £1.7m Sculthorpe Fen Appeal to purchase additional land on either side of the existing reserve and to be able to extend its wildlife management into this area, and make it fully accessible to all.