cycling for the birds !
By Karen Reed
Myself and Deputy Manager Anita have both worked at West Hatch for over 20 years and unfortunately this is about the same age as one of our aviaries !
Anita and I have really enjoyed cycling together throughout lockdown , when Government guidelines have allowed it . We tend not to cycle very far or very fast but we have noticed that we are able to do more than we could before lockdown began .
As an incentive to continue cycling we decided to challenge ourselves to cycling 100 miles in a month and at the same time raise funds for a really good cause : we would like to replace our aviary that is now beyond repair .
We have set up a JustGiving page to raise this money at bit . ly / 3rqDC48 and have been overwhelmed by people ’ s generosity during what has been a difficult year for everyone .
Our target is to raise £ 1,500 to replace the tired wooden aviary with a metal framed one with a solid roof and a new base .
A lot of the birds that come to West Hatch have suffered neglect and are often in poor condition as they have regularly been kept in cages where they were unable to fly . We believe all birds should have the option to fly as this is their most natural behaviour , so it is important that we have good facilities to rehabilitate them and ensure they can do well in an aviary environment before being rehomed . The majority of the birds we rehome are to aviaries with other compatible birds as they are a flock species .
At the time of writing we are ten days into our challenge and have completed 49 miles , which means we are almost half way to our target of 100 miles . We are really proud , especially as we are doing short routes in our local area due to lockdown restrictions and squeezing cycles in when we have days off together .
So far we have raised £ 1,405 and we are really hoping we can reach our target . If we are lucky enough to exceed £ 1,500 we hope to be able to purchase some furnishings for the aviary . Some of the birds will need additional help when they are first introduced into an aviary to build up their strength , so a variety of perches are essential .
We hope to be able to show you our new aviary in the next edition of the newsletter !
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