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.
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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.
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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