As well as working with and flying our beautiful birds of prey, many members of our Bird Team work across other areas of the Hawk Conservancy Trust. Senior Bird Team member Jillian, who joined us early last year, works closely with our Principal Educator Jenny to engage with the thousands of students that visit each year. We caught up with Jillian to hear all about how special it is to watch students fall in love with birds of prey.

“What a whirlwind of school workshops! After a busy summer, where in June alone we had over a thousand students come to the Trust, we are now jumping right back into another school year. I have been working with Jenny, our Principal Educator, to bring as many schools as possible to the Hawk Conservancy Trust so the next generations of conservations and biologists can be inspired.

While I love getting to work with our brilliant birds every day, my favourite part of my job is to run the workshops for visiting schools. In these workshops, students get a presentation from one of our staff members about the workshop topic, as well as a chance to meet a bird up close! We have multiple workshops to choose from, all of which align with Key Stages in the national curriculum. While we do recommend certain topics for different ages, most of the workshops can be adjusted to suit a variety of comprehension levels.

Usually these groups contain a wide range of students’ feelings towards birds – while we have many that are excited to be at the Trust and answer all of our questions about birds of prey, we also have students who can be nervous to meet the birds. These nervous students are actually the reason I love running the workshops, because the most rewarding part is seeing them change their opinions. Luckily, we have a variety of different birds at the Trust and this allows us to tailor these workshops to the specific groups. For example, a Reception class of students usually do best with meeting Wispa our Morepork Owl. Wispa is a small, very confident owl with an adorable trilling call. She is perfect for the smaller students, and will often think she herself is a Reception student and sit on the benches next to them like she is ready to learn all about owls! Wispa is a great introduction to birds for our younger guests (and our older ones as well – she wins over a lot of people!).

For the older students, late Primary or early Secondary, I usually introduce them to one of our Harris’s Hawks. While they can seem more larger than a small owl, they have so many interesting adaptations to talk about that it sparks a sense discovery in the students. They are able to comprehend more challenging concepts, like how Harris’s Hawks hunt in teams rather than alone, and how that helps them to survive in their environments.

However, nothing compares to the sense of accomplishment I have when it comes to our vultures. Helping to spread the message about the plight of vultures is one the Trust’s biggest conservation projects, as many are Critically Endangered. Yes, they eat carcasses, but vultures are nature’s clean-up crew, and by getting rid of those carcasses they are potentially helping to stop the spread of some diseases. The importance of vultures can be a hard concept to grasp for students (or even adults), especially as we don’t have any in the UK for a first-hand experience. But we have found that the best way to change someone’s negative opinion on vultures is to introduce them to one up close and personal. You can imagine that there is usually a lot of excited screaming from the students when they first get introduced to a Hooded Vulture flying low over their heads. But as they learn all of the interesting adaptations of vultures and see how they are applied directly in front of them, you can see those preconceptions slide away and be replaced with empathy, especially when we talk about how at risk these birds are. During the Conservation in Action workshop we actually take a word-association poll from the students before they meet a vulture and after, so they can physically see how their own opinions have changed.

That final part of the session is why I have the role I do. It makes me so proud to see the students, who were so nervous or unsure of these birds, now actively like them and want to help conserve their species. Changing opinions and feelings can be the first step towards saving some of the world’s most endangered species, and I am so grateful to be a part of that process. We want to encourage the next generation of conservationists, and it is such a powerful thing to see when that moment begins for a lot of people. Education classes at the zoo were what sparked my interest in wildlife, and I am happy to be continuing this process, introducing to students to the amazing world of birds of prey, one small owl at a time.

Jenny and I are looking forward to another full year of schools visiting the Trust, hoping to surpass our numbers from the previous year and reach even more students with our conservation message. If you are a teacher and interested in one of our workshops, please email our Education Department at education@hawkconservancy.org for more information and booking enquiries, or head to our Education webpages here.

Here’s to the next generation of aspiring conservationists!”