Inside Horsham's hidden gem - Huxley's Bird of Prey Centre - video Dailymotion

SussexWorld

SussexWorld senior editor Mark Dunford visited Huxley's Bird of Prey Centre to see all the animals they have.  Mark interviewed director and owner Luke Lloyd about the centre and what it needs to survive as a charity.

Transcript

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.

01:14BIRD CALLS

01:16BIRD CALLS

01:18BIRD CALLS

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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

Inside Horsham's hidden gem - Huxley's Bird of Prey Centre

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