Author: Terry Pickford

Throughout the last 47 years I have been involved in the conservation and protection of some of England’s rarest birds of prey. In 1967, in joint cooperation with the RSPB, the Nature Conservancy, now English Nature, I became a founder member of England’s first Raptor Study and Protection Group (The North West Raptor Group). Since 1974 my field work with raptors has been licensed by English Nature. I was a member of the UK Government Raptor Working Group which sat from 1995 to 2000. I am a qualified BTO licensed ‘A’ ringer permitting me to ring a variety of protected birds of prey at their nesting sites, including Golden Eagle (Scotland), Osprey, Red Kite, Goshawk, Peregrine Falcon and Barn Owl (England.) Between the years 1966 - 1976 I worked primarily throughout Speyside under the direction of the Hon. Douglas Weir (RSPB) where my work involved monitoring both the Golden Eagle and Peregrine Falcon populations in the Speyside area. In 1977 my work returned to England, where I began to monitor Peregrine nesting activity in both the Lake District National Park and the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire. During the past 40 years my activities associated with the peregrine falcon have been featured in several television documentaries. In 1986 my conservation work was featured in Central Televisions’ Nature Watch series hosted by Julian Petiffer. In the early 1980’s I was also involved in the reintroduction of the Peregrine Falcon (taken under licence from Scotland by a member of SNH), together with other falcons propagated in captivity back into the natural environment inside the Czech Republic, subsequently bringing about the recolonisation of peregrines in that country. In 1999 I decided to concentrate full time presenting wildlife illustrated lectures dealing specifically with raptors, their environment and protection. In 2002 at the invitation of the Polish Sea Eagle Conservation Committee, I became one of only a small handful of photographers permitted to photograph the White-tailed Sea Eagle inside Poland’s Sierakow Forest where I had been issued with the appropriate licence. The project lasted for 7 years until 2008. In the summers of 2011 and 2012 I returned to Scotland where I worked under a Scientific licence issued by Scottish Natural Heritage and the BTO to monitor and ring Golden Eagle in the Highland region. Most of this field work has been concentrated in the Blackmount and Glen Coe areas.