We’re excited to announce a new conservation and rehabilitation project to help and protect Vulnerable Cape Vultures in South Africa! Partnering with Blouberg Nature Reserve, our work involves supporting their initiative to rescue and rehabilitate young vultures.

The stunning Blouberg landscape is home to approximately 1200 nests of Cape Vultures, making it one of the largest breeding colonies of this species in the world. However, these birds face a serious threat. Around the same time as their breeding season, the Blouberg area has its rainiest season. Huge storms and intense downpours often result in young vultures, who have only just begun finding their wings after fledging their parent’s nest, grounded and stuck. Sodden through, these birds are stranded, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.

Without a means of escape, the young Cape Vultures can be preyed upon by traders looking to capture animals for ’muti’ – the practice of using animal body parts for belief-based purposes. Vultures are sought after by these traders for muti because of the belief, amongst others, that by ingesting or smoking vulture brains, people will be granted the ability to see into the future or have prophetic visions. The muti trade has had devastating impacts on vulture populations in several parts of Africa, where vultures are captured and sold or poisoned in huge numbers, contributing to their declining populations.

In an attempt to counteract the trading of Cape Vultures, the Blouberg Nature Reserve launched a recovery project, offering rewards for collecting un-injured but grounded young vultures. At the same time, they also run an education programme to promote vulture conservation within the area. With more awareness raised about the plight of these vultures and how important they are, coupled with an incentive to bring the birds to the facility instead of selling them into the muti market, the hope is more farmers, citizens and traders will be encouraged to protect and conserve these precious birds.

Since the programme was started, unfortunately illegal trade prices offered for vultures has increased. Once rehabilitating over fifty vultures, the facility has struggled to keep up with new traders and increased demand from the  the muti market. With support from the Hawk Conservancy Trust, the reserve is now able to offer a larger reward than before, with aims to spark more interest from locals to bring in any un-injured grounded vultures they find, instead of the muti alternative.

As well as financial support, the Trust is also planning to support the education programme run by the Reserve, inspiring even more people to recognise the importance of these incredible birds. With vultures only laying one egg each year, the survival of each young vulture is vital. Together, with your support, we can give these birds a chance at reaching adulthood – where they can in turn rear young of their own, keeping this species forever flying over the skies of southern Africa.

Photo credit: Andre Botha and Blouberg Nature Reserve

With your dedicated support, our 60th Anniversary year has been one of our biggest yet. From helping us approach one of our most ambitious fundraising targets ever to massive steps forward in our conservation work, you’ve helped us fly in our mission of conserving birds of prey and their habitats. As this monumental year draws to a close, we’re reflecting on what we’ve achieved with your help, and looking ahead to what 2026 holds.

Lappet-faced Vulture

This year has seen us realise an exciting development in our conservation work – the launch of our very first ’tree-safe installations‘ to protect Lappet-faced Vulture nest trees from elephant damage! The money raised in our Team Challenge fundraising from last year has been essential in progressing our efforts with practical interventions. This represents a major step forward for the project, moving from years of monitoring to actively testing a hands-on intervention strategy.

Elephant activity poses a serious threat to the vital breeding population of Lappet-faced Vultures in Kruger National Park, with many nesting trees being pushed over and lost. To tackle this, we are implementing a protection method built on a traditional strategy – installing large concrete blocks in a ring around the base of the nesting trees. These blocks are pointed and act as a physical deterrent, preventing elephants from reaching the trunks while leaving other wildlife and the surrounding habitat unaffected – key criteria for the mitigation strategy.

Each installation is a huge effort, taking around 2,000 concrete blocks per tree, plus significant logistical work to transport and install them deep within the bushveld of Kruger National Park. Despite the challenges, the design meets our goals perfectly as it is durable, low-maintenance, and minimally invasive.

We are starting with a pilot phase that will protect and monitor six trees, and assessing the effectiveness of this approach before expanding to safeguard more nesting trees in the future upon success of the pilot. It is a bold and practical step toward securing the future of South Africa’s Lappet-faced Vultures.

Central Asian Vulture Project

Fieldwork this year included five successful congregation counts in Uzbekistan and one in Tajikistan, as well as the identification of some more nesting grounds. These provide valuable data towards one of the main objectives: estimating the size of the Egyptian Vulture population in the region.

We also expanded fieldwork into Kyrgyzstan for the first time, meaning birds have now been tagged in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan for this project. This year saw three juvenile Egyptian Vultures tagged in Uzbekistan and two in Kyrgyzstan, while project partners in Kazakhstan added a further four birds. Despite these positive steps, we have also seen several tags lose signal in the second half of the year, with a number of these confirmed as mortalities. While this is always upsetting to see, the loss is not in vain because it is providing incredibly important information on survival rates and threats that face this migrating population. As we continue to track more birds, this information will build up to provide an incredibly valuable picture that can underpin practical conservation strategy and efforts.

Pakistan Vulture Recovery Project

The PVRP project had a productive year in the community despite some significant challenges. The establishment of three Nature Clubs in three schools in District Kotli in Azad Jammu and Kashmir was a key achievement. Awareness sessions with the students aimed to increase their knowledge and sensitivity to the importance and ecological role of vultures in the ecosystem, the threats these birds face, and the role students and local communities can play to protect vultures.

The project has also received some funding to enhance its national-level advocacy efforts, which aim to strengthen regulations and promote a ban on vulture-toxic veterinary drugs, specifically aceclofenac, ketoprofen, and flunixin, in Pakistan. Pakistan, thus far, has lagged behind other countries in the region in banning additional vulture-toxic NSAIDs. This new work represents a crucial step toward accelerating progress in this area. The project ultimately seeks to use targeted, evidence-based advocacy efforts to secure a nationwide ban on these harmful drugs.

Breeding in Changa Manga continues successfully, with two more White-rumped Vulture chicks successfully fledging at the breeding centre this season. The breeding centre now houses a total of 33 White-rumped Vultures, with all vultures in good health and feeding well.

Kestrel Conservation Monitoring

This year, our Team Challenge fundraising has supported our Kestrel Monitoring Conservation work, and it has been an exciting year of progress! We have launched a brand new phase of research – tracking adult nesting Kestrels. This is the first time such movement data has ever been collected in the UK, marking a major step forward in understanding these incredible birds and the reasons behind their decline in many parts of the country.

So, what exactly are we hoping to gain from the data?

The main aim of tagging adult nesting Kestrels is to find out which habitats and areas Kestrels prefer to use when raising their young. There are many factors involved and plenty of questions we expect to explore, but our key focus is on understanding how changes to the landscape, and especially those brought about by different environmental schemes, affect how Kestrels use these areas. By identifying where Kestrels concentrate their hunting across a landscape, we hope to measure how different habitat features influence their hunting success – and by extension nesting success – and once we know that, work to increase the amount of habitat that is most beneficial.

Working out how a species like the Kestrel uses its habitat is not easy though. One option is direct observation by fieldworkers, but this takes a lot of time, focus, and usually several fieldworkers, since the birds often move out of sight as they leave the nest area. Electronic tracking offers an exciting alternative, allowing us to gather detailed data with much less time in the field, and it means we can study more birds throughout the breeding season.

We have developed a safe remote system to capture the adult Kestrels in order to be able to tag them. The trackers equate to about 2% of the average weight of the lightest Kestrel. With many other birds, tags are fitted to their central tail feathers but this is not appropriate for Kestrels because of their tendency to hover during hunting, and it is likely the tags would impact their ability to do this efficiently. As such, we used a backpack harness attachment instead.

We aim to tag 20 Kestrels with satellite trackers, starting this year by successfully tagging three adult Kestrels (two females and one male) after developing our strategy and navigating some challenges in the field. We will continue to gather more data before completing a full analysis and drawing any firm conclusions but initial inspection of early patterns shows that the majority of time is spent relatively close to the nest site, with occasional trips further away.

Next year we will activate more tags and collect a lot more data. With this information, alongside data on their population numbers, where they nest, and how many chicks they raise from our raptor transects and Raptor Nest Box Project, we will have built quite a comprehensive picture of Kestrel lives in southern England. This can underpin the development of robust practical conservation solutions for them.

Here’s to a fantastic year continuing our work to conserve birds of prey in 2026!

Our 2023 Marion Paviour Award winner, Ivan and his work for that project, has recently been published in an academic journal – a fantastic achievement! We are proud to have supported Ivan in his project and this amazing milestone.

Ivan’s study focused on the Critically Endangered Rüppell’s Vulture. While they are a resident species in Uganda, their only one known breeding site in the country is in the Luku Central Forest Reserve. With support from the Hawk Conservancy Trust Marion Paviour Award grant, Ivan documented their population size and breeding success at a small colony inside the reserve, and identified specific threats to this vital colony as well as the surrounding habitat. Although once widespread across East, West and Central Africa, their population has radically plunged by more than 90% in about four decades, a heart-breaking loss that further underscores the importance of this breeding population.

The Luku Central Forest Reserve provides about 4,000 hectares of forest refuge in Uganda’s West Nile region, but this important species’ future in the region remains very uncertain. Talking about his study area, Ivan explained how the reserve sits near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where conflict has driven thousands of refugees into Uganda’s Arua District. Refugees now make up nearly a quarter of the district’s 800,000 residents, many of whom rely on the reserve for charcoal production and farmland. Subsequently, once-dense forest has given way to scattered scrub. Even an important native hardwood tree, previously not typically used in the charcoal production, is now being felled regularly. Ivan explained that while they are a cliff nesting species, the tree in question, Antiaris toxicaria (part of the Mulberry and Fig family, Moraceae), is still used by vultures for nesting material and roosting, and it disappearing is a major concern for the future of this species in Uganda.

The impact is not solely the loss of habitat, but also the direct influence on these declining vultures and their behaviour. Ivan explained that the smoke rising from the charcoal kilns disturbs the vultures, particularly on the lower ledges of the cliff. As a result, they fly off. This can impact their breeding success, leaving eggs or young chicks alone and uncovered – at risk of predation or perishing. Ivan’s research of the colony showed that only 57% of nests monitored raised a chick successfully during the survey period, lower than recorded in other locations.

This is only one of several threats facing these birds. Hunters from outside Uganda cross the border, often on the hunt for Rock Hyraxes, will also steal vulture eggs and chicks. Expanding farmland and settlements in the area often attract other species like monkeys, baboons and corvids, which also raid nests. These animals also threaten vultures in another devasting way: poisonings. As a result of negative interactions with humans, many are poisoned, which leaves deadly toxins that also kill the vultures feeding on their carcasses. With vultures typically hatching just one chick per year, each loss is significant, and devastating.

Ivan estimated the population to be around 49 Rüppell’s Vultures, with just 14 breeding pairs – a worryingly small population compared to surveyed cliffs in some other countries. With the many threats they face and the low nest success rate, the future looks uncertain for these birds. There is a lot of work to be done to ensure this population can be sustained and begin to grow, but this is not a mission Ivan is shying away from.

Now back out in the field, Ivan is hard at work monitoring the Ngolonyako Cliff, as well as a new site discovered towards the end of his previous study. This second site has around 60 nesting pairs, which is a really positive find for the area, and for Rüppell’s Vultures in Uganda and the wider region. He will continue to focus on collecting data on population dynamics, breeding success, and threat assessments, with the goal being this data can inform the next steps towards conserving this species in the area. It is great to see Ivan’s research have such an impact and benefit to such an incredibly threatened but brilliant species, as well as to Ivan’s blossoming conservation career – Marion’s leading hope from this award.

Endangered Lappet-faced Vultures are on the brink of losing critical breeding opportunities in Kruger National Park. Breeding territories depend on a handful of key nest trees, yet elephants are destroying these trees at an alarming rate.  Our monitoring has highlighted  just how scarce these nest trees have become.  With so few trees remaining, and the slow breeding cycle of Lappet-faced Vultures, the urgency to act is clear, and we think we might have the solution to protect these trees.

Although Kruger National Park is home to one of the largest remaining populations of Lappet-faced Vultures in southern Africa, we estimate that there are only about 30 nests across the park’s roughly 20,000km² landscape, an area about the size of Wales!

Between 2008 and 2017, elephants toppled roughly a quarter of nest sites (of around 60 nest sites that we monitored). Today, the vultures are mostly confined to an area of about 4,000km² in the park’s central sections, leaving their already fragile breeding population under serious threat and at risk of disappearing from the park.

At the Hawk Conservancy Trust, we are working to protect the few remaining nest trees and understand the elephant behaviour. That’s no easy task; Lappet-faced Vultures are notoriously unpredictable in their breeding habits, often switching trees, skipping breeding, or abandoning nests mid-build. With so few nest trees left and the clock ticking, every tree matters. The aim isn’t to stop elephants from toppling trees entirely, but to steer them away from the precious ones that these vultures depend on.

Lappet-faced Vultures choose surprisingly small trees for their nests, which makes those trees easy targets for elephants to push over. Why elephants seem drawn to these particular trees is still a puzzle. Typically, elephants push trees down to eat from the canopy or exposed roots, but in this case, they often leave the fallen nest trees untouched. Sometimes they will even topple a nest tree when plenty of other trees stand nearby, including toppling nest tree species they wouldn’t usually eat.

To try to solve this complicated problem, this year we are moving to Stage 2 of this project and will implement trial “tree safe installations.”   This is a time-tested local method of placing large, concrete pyramids (pointed rocks, essentially) around the base of key trees. It is a simple, low-maintenance deterrent similar to what has been used for years to protect iconic trees, such as Baobabs, in southern Africa. It has also been used to great effect in reserves neighbouring Kruger National Park to protect mature trees from elephants. We do not know for sure whether the mysterious attraction of Lappet-faced Vulture nests will outweigh the discomfort and effort for elephants to walk over or dig up the concrete pyramids.  We are opting for this low maintenance method rather than using electric fences or anything that might disturb or affect other wildlife.

During Stage 1, we used cameras to monitor current and potential nesting trees, which proved challenging and did not bring the hoped for insights into elephant behaviour.  Several trees were monitored, but the elephants often seemed to know they were being watched, pulling down or obscuring the camera trap ahead of pulling the nest tree down. This, of course, is doubly frustrating – losing another tree but without enhancing our understanding of the problem. The threat posed by elephants is clearly pressing, and we cannot wait to fully understand their behaviour before attempting to reduce the damage. That is why Stage 2 is so urgent and starting now. We must begin protecting the very limited number of remaining nest trees before more are lost.

Installing these tree safe installations will be a pilot, the hopeful success of which, will shape our path into Stage 3, which involves rolling out protection across all the current and potential nesting trees in Kruger.  Secretary Birds also nest in similar trees to Lappet-faced Vultures, which means this project, if successful, could also help in protecting their populations too.

After last year’s incredible fundraising, we have been able to purchase the moulds for creating the concrete pyramids and are pressing ahead with getting some pyramids created now! We are set to use up to 2000 concrete pyramids per tree to protect them, which brings logistical challenges and labour costs to transport and install the bed of pyramids around these trees, deep in the bushveld of Kruger. It is quite the operation, but we are excited to be getting this next stage underway and will require urgent funds to expand this project further.  Please click here if you would like to donate to support this project.

Last week, we said a fond farewell to our 2025 Conservation and Research Intern, Sorcha. Over her five month placement with us, generously funded by the Cameron Bespolka Trust, Sorcha has supported much of our work, including our onsite biodiversity, bird of prey population and small mammal population surveys. Plus, she even supported ringing Kestrel chicks as part of our Raptor Nest Box Project!

“Unfortunately, my time here at the Hawk Conservancy Trust has come to an end. These past five months have been absolutely jam-packed and I’m not sure where to begin, but I will try my best to describe some of the highlights working as the Conservation and Research Intern here at the Trust.

Since starting here in May I have been carrying out on-site biodiversity surveys, and as the weather begins to cool many of these surveys have been wrapping up. Over the summer myself and some of our lovely volunteers carried out 11 nights of moth trapping, split between Reg’s Wildflower Meadow, the Savannah Arena, the Woodland Arena and the Discovery Barn. Over 500 individuals from 290 species were recorded in total. Some of my favourites included the Leopard Moth, the Black Arches and the Chinese Character, as well as some beautiful micro moths like the Ypsolopha scabrella and the Argyresthia goedartella (the little ones don’t usually get nice, easy-to-remember names). The Trust, in particular Reg’s Wildflower Meadow, was brimming with pollinators this year, including butterflies, day flying moths, beetles, hoverflies and bees. 23 species of butterfly and six species of day-flying moth were recorded, including Small Skippers, Small Coppers and always popular, the Hummingbird Hawk-moth. It was also lovely to see the three ponds at the Trust so full of life during aquatic surveys. Some of the most exciting finds were dragonfly larva (resulting in some beautiful adult dragonflies such as Emperors, Southern Hawkers and Broad-bodied Chasers) and newt efts!

One of my favourite tasks has been conducting the early morning bird point counts, it was a real pleasure to walk around the empty Trust with only myself and the birds. The Trust hosts an incredibly diverse array of birds, my most memorable spots included Hobbies, a frequent Sparrowhawk visitor (often followed a mob of angry Swallows) and one special encounter with three Green Woodpeckers in Reg’s Meadow.

Trust Research Assistant, Tanith, very kindly taught me the ropes of small mammal trapping. Together we conducted three rounds of small mammal trapping at the Trust and four rounds at three external sites. Whilst slow to initially take off, the small mammals eventually showed themselves, giving us an insight into how they, and vicariously raptors like kestrels, were fairing this year. It was extremely interesting to see how the sites differed in terms of abundance and diversity, with one site being particularly favoured by Wood Mice (a rather energetic species to work with, to say the least). Across all sites we recorded Short-tailed Voles, Bank Voles, Common Shrews, Pygmy Shrews and Wood Mice. I am extremely grateful to Tanith, not only teaching me all she knows (about small mammals and otherwise), but putting up with me on many early mornings and late evenings whilst we put smelly casters into traps and got excited over small mammal faeces. We also had lots of exciting non-small mammal interactions, including a very close encounter with a young badger and a hunting Goshawk and lots of cool invertebrate findings (both in the traps and around the general sites).

Since the beginning of June, I have been undertaking a small project looking primarily into butterfly and day-flying moth abundance and diversity across Reg’s Wildflower Meadow and three other local wildflower meadows (Broughton Down, Magdalen Hill Down and Bury Hill Meadows). This has allowed me to work on project management skills as well as brush up on some coding skills too.

I have been lucky enough to venture out into the field with Dr Matt Stevens, the British Projects Manager, on a couple of occasions. Under the very watchful eye of Matt, a licensed ringer, I was able to ring my first ever bird, and a Kestrel chick is a pretty special first bird. We also went out to investigate a couple of Barn Owl nest boxes in the area and made a very exciting discovery of a male and female Barn Owl, both seven years old and doing very well. Matt is an absolute wealth of knowledge on these amazing birds (on many birds), I am extremely grateful to have been able to pick his brains and learn so much from him on only a few trips out.

Towards the end of my internship, I have also managed to squeeze in a few raptor transects to monitor raptor densities across the south-east of the UK. This has taken me around the local area and as far as Dungeness, Kent, they are an extremely lovely way to spend a day. I have been lucky enough to see Kestrels, Ravens, Red Kites, Common Buzzards, Goshawks, Sparrowhawks and Marsh Harriers!

I have spent some time during this internship getting to grips with camera traps that will hopefully lay the foundations for some exciting new conservation and research work the Trust will be undertaking in the future. This has involved putting camera traps on roadkill to attempt to monitor raptor’s, particularly scavengers like Red Kites and Common Buzzards, interactions with roadkill and traffic. Roadkill so far has mostly been taken by foxes, and one strong cat, but a capture of a Red Kite scooping up a Common Wood Pigeon from the road was enough to fuel a lot of excitement for the whole day.

I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity, and I have learnt so much from so many people during my time as Conservation and Research Intern at the Trust. I have really enjoyed my time working here, everyone has made it an incredibly welcoming environment, and I couldn’t ask for better people to work with. My biggest thank you goes to Dr Jamie McKaughan, the Conservation and Research Coordinator, who has supported me immensely throughout this internship.

A huge thank you to the Cameron Bespolka Trust. This internship has been a huge stepping stone into a career in conservation and without their support I would not have been here.”

Migration is one of the riskiest times in a bird’s life, and sadly, many migratory species are seeing their numbers drop. One such species is the Egyptian Vulture, the only true migrant among the Old World vultures, and currently listed as Endangered. These remarkable birds come in two populations: one spread across Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, and the other in central and south Asia.

Protecting migratory birds is not an easy task. They face a range of threats depending on where they are, be that where they are breeding, where they are spending the winter, or where they travel in between. For the population that moves between Europe, the Middle East and Africa, we have learned a lot about the dangers they face. But for those traveling through central Asia, there is still a huge knowledge gap.

That is why this pioneering project remains so important. Now a few years in, it is filling a crucial knowledge gap, pioneering as the first to track Egyptian Vultures in central Asia, shedding light on their movements and the threats they face. We are proud to be part of this vital work through helping to fund satellite tags, contributing to the analysis and scientific publications, and sharing updates as the project progresses. Our Conservation and Research Coordinator, Dr Jamie McKaughan, had one such opportunity to do this recently at this year’s Global Bird Fair. We caught up with him when he got back:

“It was a real privilege to speak about this project at this year’s Global Bird Fair. Before joining the Hawk Conservancy Trust, the Egyptian Vulture was not a species I knew particularly well. I had never worked with them in the field and have yet to see one in the wild. In fact, since meeting Boe, our Egyptian Vulture at the Trust with her lovely, inquisitive character and becoming involved in the project, they have quickly become a favourite of mine.

Bird Fair was a great opportunity to reflect on just how far the project has come since it began. Although we are a few years into it now, it still feels like the project is breaking new ground with work expanding further in central Asia, beyond where it started in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan was an ideal starting point, as it hosts a known breeding population of Egyptian Vultures and it was also the only country in central Asia with a recently updated National Action Plan for the species. Plus, its location at the crossroads of two major bird migration flyways makes it a key area for understanding routes and risks affecting not only vultures, but many other migratory birds.

Since the project launched in 2021, work has expanded into neighbouring countries like Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, and this year’s field season excitingly, made further steps. Tagging reached new ground with two Egyptian Vultures tagged in Kyrgyzstan this July, while another three were tagged at nest sites in Uzbekistan’s central deserts area. Vlad and the field team were also kept busy conducting congregation counts at dump sites and continuing the search for additional nest locations.

Of course, tracking wildlife in the wild and conservation efforts in general comes with many ups and downs. In the last few months, we have lost signals from several tagged birds. At least one has been confirmed as a fatality, though the cause remains unknown. For the others, we are still hoping they have simply moved into areas with poor signal coverage, but realistically, we are preparing ourselves for the likelihood of more losses. Battery levels were strong when they disappeared, so unfortunately the signs are not particularly encouraging.

Despite these setbacks, they highlight just how important this work is and how incredibly valuable the data we are gathering is. Right now, there are 17 tags transmitting from across our central Asia study area, the majority of which were tagged in Uzbekistan. Early data has already shown that most of the birds we are tracking spend the non-breeding season in India, while others head to the Middle East. Work is already underway on a publication exploring these trends. We will want to tag many more birds to ensure these patterns are accurate and not a result of sampling bias, or the locations we are tagging the birds, or some other factor. Any donations to help us will always be gratefully received!!

Although I have not had the chance (yet!) to join the team in the field, I am really proud to be contributing from afar helping with data analysis, supporting publications, and sharing these stories and project progress with others at events like the Global Bird Fair. It was a great event to speak about the project at, with many like-minded people coming together, it really helped reinvigorate the soul to keep going with trying to make the world a more nature and wildlife-friendly place as much as possible, or at least it certainly did for me! There was a great positive energy and it was great that the Trust were able to have a stall for the full three days of the event, enabling people to come and talk more about not only the Central Asian Vulture Project, but so much more of the work the Trust does, both in the field locally and internationally, but also at the Visitor Centre, spreading the importance of conserving birds of prey and their habitats. I look forward to the next opportunity to speak about this fantastic project and these stunning birds!

Just finally, back on the subject of vultures… Something I learnt from Vlad, which I absolutely love, is that in the Balkans, Egyptian Vultures are seen as a symbol of spring, often being referred to as the ‘Horse of the cuckoo’, where the cuckoos ride in on Egyptian Vultures to bring spring with them. I think that is both a very cool and poetic image, while perhaps also profoundly reflecting what vultures can do – clearing away what once lived to make room for new life, just like spring itself. Hopefully our work can help that continue long into the future.”