00:00Who wants to see the birds fly?
00:02Right, the first one's coming in.
00:04Just over your heads.
00:06Right now.
00:08So what we have here is a little male barn owl.
00:10This is Casper. Now Casper's right about
00:12four or five years old.
00:14They're quite easy to identify males.
00:16They generally have a real white chest.
00:18I'm Luke. I'm the director of Huxleys
00:20Birds of Prairie Central Garden,
00:22which is a charity known as Huxleys Foundation CIO.
00:24BIRD CALLS
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00:28So roughly,
00:30because it changes all the time,
00:32we've got about 80 plus birds of prey here,
00:34or animals I should say, because we've got meerkats now as well.
00:36Volunteer wise,
00:38we probably have between 20 to 25
00:40that come in sporadically
00:42through the weeks or once every two weeks
00:44or so that come in and help us out as well.
00:46Do you see a puppy now?
00:48Do you see it?
00:50Do you go to the other side?
00:5430 plus years now.
00:561999 if I'm correct.
00:58I've probably got that wrong.
01:00About then when Julian Ford, the founder,
01:02started up here with this being wasteland,
01:04totally overturned it, built the aviaries
01:06and it was all from a hobby
01:08he had at Charleston Manor when he was head gardener
01:10which kind of grew and got out of control.
01:12So he started the centre instead.
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01:30Back in 2002 when I was 15 years old
01:32I came up here as a volunteer
01:34and just fell in love with it.
01:36I think within six months I had my own bird
01:38which I used to take into school with me, surprisingly enough.
01:40What bird was that?
01:42So I had a harris hawk and then I remember
01:44my art teacher saying to me several months later
01:46to bring in something you're going to draw for GCSE Art
01:48and I took a baby barn owl in a basket
01:50so that came around lessons with me as well.
01:52I don't think you get away with that nowadays.
01:54But I've always kept birds of prey
01:56from that point.
01:58Been in and out of obviously this career
02:00and then
02:02I came back from Cornwall
02:04I think it was when Julian
02:06his last week when he was passing away
02:08to come and see him
02:10and then from that point came and volunteered
02:12every weekend after that to help out
02:14and then got to a point where I managed it
02:16and now own it.
02:18Hello.
02:20So we've got several ways
02:22we've got our Just Giving page
02:24there's a link on our website
02:26we've also got our Amazon Wishlist
02:28we've got a whole page dedicated to how people can support
02:30we're part of the Horsham Lottery
02:32now as well
02:34so we've put all these things in place
02:36a lot more so since having the charity status
02:38which we got in August of 2024
02:40people are
02:42able to gift aid on their admission
02:44which they've been doing as well so that really helps
02:46and it's helping to give us more
02:48of a positive future just to keep going on.
02:50Come on.
02:54The Windhover
02:56now the Windhover is referred to as the
02:58common kestrel here in Britain
03:00but that's how we know them
03:02we know them because we've seen them beside the coast
03:04the dual carriageways, Heathlands and Grasford.
03:06It's been a struggle
03:08we did this year put out a post
03:10about supporting us and helping us
03:12to get through the winter
03:14historically the last couple of years
03:16it's been a case of you're robbing Peter
03:18to pay Paul
03:20it gets me very stressed
03:22and affects my mental health at times
03:24since going to the charity
03:26and the support people have been giving us
03:28made it a bit easier this year and I do see light
03:30on the end of the tunnel especially with the gift aid
03:32additions and stuff like that now
03:34going forward we should hopefully be on top of it
03:36and ahead of ourselves which will be a fantastic
03:38situation to be in
03:40you can see from looking around that we've got
03:42enclosures that need renovating as well
03:44they're very old
03:46that's going to cost a huge amount of money
03:48as well to do because they're all around
03:50the lawn so ideally you do them
03:52not all in one go
03:54but you'll do a succession of maybe two or three
03:56together and then keep going around
03:58as opposed to one at a time
04:00so it would be nice to look at that possibility
04:02of being able to do that and have that financial security
04:04to do that to improve
04:06the well-being of the birds
04:08it's ideal what they're in at the moment
04:10but obviously there's the risk that they are rotting
04:12and everything else like that
04:14so we've got some plans to really step things up a little bit
04:16here when we do those renovations on enclosures
04:18and we've got other ideas to bring in
04:20other animals and exotics in as well
04:32so the most used sentence
04:34I hear is it's a hidden gem
04:36people don't know how big it is
04:38what we do, that it's here
04:40and when they come here they're absolutely surprised
04:42with the size that we are
04:44how many animals we've got
04:46and what we do to cater for the customers during the day
04:58so at the moment for our winter hours
05:00we're open Thursday through to Sundays
05:02so we're open from 11am
05:04through till 4pm, last entry is about 3.30pm
05:06and then during the summer
05:08we're open an hour or so from Easter half term
05:10we are open from Wednesdays
05:12through to Sundays
05:14and we'll be 11am to 5pm
05:16Sundays being till about 4.30pm
05:18each day we do flying to space
05:2012 o'clock and 2 o'clock
05:22and then after those flying to space
05:24we do meet a bird sessions
05:26which are held in our picnic area
05:28and people are able to see a bird close up and ask questions
05:30we also do private experiences
05:32people can book onto as well
05:34so on the day you can have a meerkat experience
05:36in with the meerkats and have them run all over you
05:38being fed
05:40fly our barn owl Casper at 1 o'clock
05:42and we have our bigger ones that people can book privately
05:44to do as well through the weeks
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