When I was about 14yrs old back in 1978, my dad bought a long beach casting fishing rod. It came in 3 pieces and was 12ft long when assembled. Over many years we would attempt to catch an assortment of fish on the beaches of West Wittering in Sussex and on holidays in Cornwall. Little did I know then that some 33 years later, that same rod would help me obtain a very big and most important catch. But this is not just about what was caught this is also about how it was caught and the events that led up to that moment, a story of seven long days in January 2011 that I shall not forget for a very long time.

Cremorne is a female Bald Eagle. She was captive bred in Holland in 2009 and subsequently exported to her new home at The International Birds of Prey Centre Newent Gloucestershire in Early February 2010 where she was trained for demonstration purposes by the staff. It became evident that Cremorne was good as far as flying was concerned but not so good when it came to dealing with her own somewhat nervous demeanour. Sometimes she would be extremely confident and at times quite arrogant, but more often than not she carried with her an air of shyness and anxiety, like a lost child not knowing who to trust or where to go. In that first year this part of her character caused problems and made management of a consistent well-constructed demonstration quite difficult. She also seemed to have made up her mind who out of the ICBP bird staff she liked and who she did not. All things being equal it is safe to say that as far as training is concerned, she is quite a challenge.

The responsibility of looking after her fell on to my lap soon after I returned to the ICBP in October 2010 having been away from the centre for nearly seven years. She had been rested and just handled over the summer months. I seemed to strike up a good relationship with her initially and did not have any problems. With a lot of help from Jemima (owner and director of ICBP) and both volunteers and staff, we slowly restructured her training - basically starting from scratch again with the emphasis on building up her confidence in us and developing a system that she enjoyed and which eradicated scenarios and problems that made her anxious. Though we changed a number of things, two alterations to our system had a significant effect. Firstly we were to finish the flying demonstration not by picking her up on the fist and then walking through the audience but get her to fly over them to a post some 20 metres behind them, then call her to the fist and walk away. This significantly reduced her concerns about the public in a really positive way. Secondly the whole process of removing her mews jesses(leather straps attached to anklets that have slits in the bottom so they can be fitted on to a swivel) before each demonstration had become a minor battle that she did not like and which unnerved her a great deal . This in turn ruined the demonstration before we even started. Every bird that is flown at ICBP have their mews jesses removed but with Cremorne we decided not to. Some people who read this will no doubt be sceptical and critical of our reasons, but with Cremorne due to her size and other factors I thought it was the right thing to do. At that stage, little did I know how important that decision would be in the future.

 

Through October, November and December things with Cremorne went very well; she was more settled. Her behaviour and flying were consistent and her confidence appeared to be growing. I had one slightly bad day when she sat on the ice cream pavilion in the demonstration field for a minute or so, but she flew down fairly quickly and we finished the demo as normal on the back post behind the audience. Mind you we had a really good day when she went up very high above the centre in the wind and then came down immediately when I called her; a stunning flight to see. We had a break over Christmas and in the New Year I started her off on a training line for the first 2 weeks just to make sure everything was OK. Then on Tuesday 18th Jan it all went completely `pear shaped`as they say in south London.

Weather for the week was good, no high winds and plenty of sun, so I decided to fly her free and carry on where we had left off a few weeks previously. We attached the Telemetry transmitter (electronic tracking system ) onto her tail and released her from the weighing room door to fly down to the demonstration area. This she did by completing a lovely circuit of the field before returning to the centre post when I called her. I attempted to get her to take off for another circuit but she refused to move which was quite unusual. She then went very tight feathered as if something had frightened her. I looked around but could not see anyone or anything that could have caused this. I walked up to her but she still remained stationary, I knew it was a mistake to pick her up from the centre post so I walked away in the direction of the back post where we always finish . She took off and made it to the post before me which is quite normal. I approached her and held out my fist at which point she jumped to the fist, before I had any chance to take hold of her jesses she immediately flew off again all the way to the top of the main eagle barn.

 

 

 

This was the start of 3 days of her just hanging around the centre watching the staff go about their daily routines. Numerous attempts with copious amounts of food were made in an attempt to lure her down with no success. We had dead rats, day old chicks and best beef; but no sign of interest whatsoever on her part. Sometimes she would land on the floor but any attempt to approach her resulted in the customary flight to the top of a tree or one of the aviary blocks. Each evening I would make sure she was off the ground and in a tree before I went home. And each morning when I got in she was watching me from high up in the Turkey Oak in the middle of the centre. Continued efforts were made to lure her down without any success. It was very cold, below freezing especially at night and I believed that with a couple of nights and no food it was not going to be too hard to get her down. How wrong I was! She continued to watch us from her high perches occasionally being mobbed by the odd crow and wild buzzard . She was happy to watch Jemima and Mike use the digger and dumper to put down a hardcore roadway at the entrance to the horses field. Often Cremorne (I had called her a variety of alternate names by then) would sit in a tree watching Adam and myself continue renovating the toilet block. She did not seem too bothered about life at that stage and still continued to ignore any food offered to her. Sometimes she would go and sit by the café when all the staff went down for lunch, at other times she went on the odd excursion around the perimeter of the centre. She seemed more active in the afternoons but would settle high up in a tree just as it got dark. And each morning she was there to greet me as I came in to work on my bike. But you still could not get near enough to grab her. It was impossible to get any closer to her than about 10 metres.

We had a telemetry tracking system on her so we knew we could follow her if she went off. But I was worried because the transmitter had started to double beep which meant the batteries were starting to run low. Plus Cremorne had no food or water intake, the thought of her becoming ill and dehydrated began to play on my mind. I was not sleeping very well and the nightmare of losing her completely slowly started to play on my conscience. By Friday lunchtime I was very worried. Though we continued to attempt to lure her down she seemed to have switched off to food completely and showed no sign of interest in anything we had to offer. I had seen this before in eagles over the years that had gone AWOL especially fish eagles. On a couple of occasions we had “chased a bird down`. This was as a last resort when the bird had been out for 3 or more days. Basically it’s a system where you keep the bird moving scaring it out of trees or other perches, keeping it flying until it runs out of puff, lands on the floor or low perch and then run up and quickly secure it.  It’s not the best option but it does work, you just need luck , speed and teamwork. Other factors were also at play here, namely the centre opened back up to the public soon and Cremorne being out had severely delayed our preparation for this, especially getting the `flying team` prepared for the new season as no bird could be flown with Cremorne in the vicinity of the flying field. Also we did not know how long the transmitter batteries - or Cremorne’s health - would last.

 

On Friday afternoon we decided that if she moved of her own accord away from the centre we would chase her down. At about 2.00 pm that’s exactly what she did and the chase began. She moved from tree to tree in the direction of Newent woods and Taynton. My colleague Adam and myself were assisted by ICBP bird staff as we followed on foot through and over numerous fields, fences and streams. As always Cremorne being one step ahead of us laughing as she was going, no doubt. The initial flights were well in excess of 500m in distance at which point I realised that I had underestimated her fitness. My determination was there but my belief that we would catch her was taking a bit of a bashing. At that stage some of the team had to go back to the centre to finish off numerous jobs. Adam and I continued on the trail, much to the amusement of a local farmer who spent most of the afternoon watching us go round in circles, falling in streams and ripping our clothes on barbed wire fences. I had already spoken to him earlier and asked permission to go on to his land. I had met his rather large Doberman in the drive way and thought it best to ask first before I walked across his garden. He and his wife were very nice and later told me as I ran past his back door for the 3rd time that it was the best afternoons entertainment he`d had in a long time.

We walked and ran miles that afternoon and ended up near Taynton church for the second time that day having already been there earlier. There is nothing like going round in big wide circles to improve your fitness, or in this case, destroy morale. What people perhaps don`t realise is that where Cremorne could fly directly across a field we more often than not had to go around the edge. As a result it felt like we were travelling twice the distance she was. We waited till dark and retreated in defeat whilst she roosted high up in a tree in the church grounds. I was back again early the next morning. Simon picked us up and back to the Centre we went. One of the interesting things about teams of people looking for birds is that once you are out of radio contact distance, the various teams usually find one another with the telemetry!

 

It was now Saturday 22nd Jan I got up early and drove out to the Churchyard to check that Cremorne was where we had left her, which she was. I checked that the telemetry was working and that we had a good signal, then returned to the ICBP to pick up Jemima and Adam. On returning to Taynton we again located the eagle and as soon as it got light the whole chase around the countryside and across farmland continued. She initially went back towards Kents Green and then in the direction of Tibberton. By mid-morning she had started to drift southwards towards Churcham. Cremorne and fish eagles in general have a fairly light wing loading, consequently she seemed to be able to gain height very quickly with just a few wing beats and very little effort. This was normally followed by a casual glide over very long distances, whereupon she would pick a favourable perch in very tall tree which was beginning to make it hard for us to move her on as quickly as we needed to. As we approached lunchtime Cremorne was getting closer to the A40 whilst Adam and I were getting tired and hungry. Much to our relief Jemima who had returned to the centre earlier met up with us with some food and extra bird staff namely Holly and Simon to help us out. After a short break we were off again with Cremorne flying over the A40 at Birdwood and then alongside Oakle street and over the railway line towards Walmore Common.

It must have been a bizarre sight to see a group of adults running around over open farmland for no apparent reason. We spoke to many land and home owners who must have thought we were slightly mad. Cremorne must have thought the same because she became harder and harder to keep pushing on. There were times that the only way we could move her on was to throw things into the trees to disturb her. Safe ammunition was hard to come by so on many occasions we resorted to using segments of frozen cow pats from the floor of the fields that we were in at the time. We must have looked like complete `fruitcases`. If anyone had filmed us it would have made a good You Tube video. On one occasion some young children and their mum came out from their house to assist us by clapping their hands to scare her off the top of the house. Needless to say in most cases she moved when she was ready and not when we wanted her to. There was one point when Cremorne landed on the floor on a hillside, I managed to throw some food out to her on a line but as I moved closer to her she just took off again and sailed across the valley. My confidence in the day being a success was slowly diminishing again.

Adam had injured his leg earlier in the day so he took the van that Simon had been chasing around with after the ground team, and returned to the centre. This left Jemima, Simon, Holly and myself to continue the chase, which much to my concern was taking us ever closer to the River Severn. Late in the afternoon after a great deal of walking, running and the usual scrambling through hedgerows we ended up in the grounds of a large country house in Adsett Lane on the outskirts of Westbury on Severn. Cremorne had found a particularly large Cedar of Lebanon tree in which to perch. There was no way we could get to her so we decided to leave her alone and debate our next move. We were all cold, wet and slightly bruised, standing in the road looking up at the tree, so when some local residents came out to see what we were doing, and then offered us tea and freshly baked cakes, it was a gesture that was very much appreciated by all. Thinking back now I was amazed how everyone we met was friendly, polite and did what they could to help us, even though some must have thought that we were a bit strange. We decided to leave Cremorne where she was until the next day. We had to telephone a friend in Newent to pick us up as Adam was back at the centre with the van trying to find one of Jemima`s Labradors that had run off. I cannot remember a time when I was so cold and disheartened, it was a welcome relief when the lift turned up and took us all back to the centre. Tomorrow was another day!

 

Jemima, Adam and myself returned early the next day( Sunday 23rd ) to find that she had moved again. There was still a good signal on the telemetry so we tracked her down to another tree by the side of a railway line about a mile away. I tried to call her down with food but she just was not interested, she ended up moving further down the line high up into another tree. We had little choice but to follow her down the track. We had to move her as there was nothing we could do to get her back at that location. She was too high up to throw things to disturb her so Adam went to climb the tree with my assistance. The tree was surrounded by brambles so both of us ended up in some unusual positions to enable Adam to get to the first branch. If anyone apart from Jemima had been watching us I can only wonder what they must have thought we were up to on a Sunday morning in the woods next to a railway line. We all ended up having a good laugh about it but it seemed to work and Cremorne flew off again onto a nearby farm and then back to another large tree in the grounds of the house in Adsett Lane that we had been at the day before. There she perched high up in a Tulip tree. Jemima and Adam returned to the centre as Cremorne seemed fairly settled and I took watch from nearby, much to the amusement of the local residents who took numerous photos, telephoned all their friends and supplied me with tea and coffee for the next 2 hours. One of the residents was a `twitcher` and took great delight in telling his friends on his mobile; “you never guess what I`ve just seen in my back garden!”

Just after midday she suddenly took off again and took me on another circuitous journey around the nearby farms and then headed north away from Westbury on Severn. She ended back in a tree by some woods where we had been the previous day. I only got to within about 100m of her before she was mobbed by some crows, buzzards and a raven. She took off and was pushed up above the wood way up high where she began to circle for what seemed like ages, before she disappeared over the hill and out of sight, my telemetry signal also went. Panic!

I scrambled through the woods, then up the hill onto some open farmland where I regained a signal on the Telemetry which pointed me back in the direction of Westbury on Severn. After a short trek down the hill and then along the A48 I found her perched in a tree by a rugby club on the outskirts of the town. And there she stayed for over 3 hours much to the curiosity of the locals who came over to observe her at regular intervals. No cups of tea this time though and it was very, very cold especially in the wind. Then at about 3pm she suddenly took off and headed into Westbury landing in a tree behind a church before taking flight again and headed off towards a hillside directly adjacent to the River Severn. I followed as fast as I could, but I had rucksack, falconry bag and telemetry to carry so it was pretty hard work to keep up any pace. I lost sight of her over a hill called Garden Cliff which I eventually climbed. When I reached the top I sank to my knees almost in complete despair as I saw the River Severn down below me curving its way southwards. I did not realise at the time but I had been standing right on a substantial cliff edge that dropped straight down into the River. My immediate attention had been drawn to the middle of the river where on a sand bank, surrounded by a hoard of crows and gulls, Cremorne was, sitting there like a stolen HGV in a car park full of police cars. This was my lowest point mentally so far, I just could not see how I could get her back from this position on the river which is approximately 650 m wide at this point and she was bang in the middle. There was no way across, it was fast flowing and extremely dangerous. Any suggestion of walking across the sandbanks was in reality suicidal madness. So I just sat there with my head in my hands - what more could I do.

After watching her have various altercations with an ever increasing number of crows she took flight and headed downstream following the centre of the river. She stopped on further sandbanks but she continued to be mobbed before taking off again and heading back across the river towards Broadoak. Her flight appeared laboured and I half expected her to be forced into the river by her angry hoard of followers. I found myself willing her to make it to the bank, which after a few heart stopping moments she managed to do. From my vantage point it looked like she had landed in some reeds about a kilometre down river, it was difficult to see but I had a good signal on the telemetry so I raced down the hill and along the bank to where I believed she was as fast as I could.

When I arrived at where she should have been, no sign of her, but the signal indicated much to my surprise, a positional direction back across the river in the direction of Arlingham. Then I saw her back in the middle of the River on another sandbank but this time she was scavenging on a dark carcass of sorts some 200m out. I did not have binoculars so I could not identify what she was eating. I had telephoned Jemima and informed her and the other bird staff what had happened. They were on their way to meet me and in the meantime I just watched Cremorne scavenge away and move slowly closer to the opposite side of the river.

Eventually Jemima and the team arrived with food, drinks and much needed moral support. We saw Cremorne moving ever nearer to the other side and eventually lost sight of her as darkness came.

After much debate we decided to all go back to the van and drive via Gloucester (the nearest crossing point across the Severn ) to the other side of the River and meet up with Adam in Arlingham who as luck would have it was on his way back from Bristol and had been informed of the developments.

At about 7pm we all met up as planned and with a good signal on the Telemetry, we began to track down her location. We did not know at that time if she had made it off the sandbank or not. After speaking first to a local farmer we made our way across numerous muddy fields, ditches and fences. Not an easy thing when it’s dark and you don`t know the area very well. After about mile and getting ever closer to the banks of the Severn we located Cremorne once again about half way up an old Oak tree. She seemed fairly relaxed and content and had obviously eaten something as her crop was bulging slightly. Our plan of attack was to try and `blind ` her temporarily with a powerful torch that Simon had just purchased by chance for night hawking with his Goshawk. Then climb the tree and try and take hold of her in some way. The Oak tree was fairly substantial and difficult to climb so Jemima and Holly went round to some of the local houses to try and obtain a ladder. Which they did much to the amusement of a man who when they knocked on his door was in the throes of celebrating his birthday with friends and family. As with most people we met that week he was most willing to help out.

He helped us obtain a double extendable ladder that went up to about 20 feet. We extended this out to its full length directly under Cremorne’s position in the tree. Simon and myself secured it in position with the object of holding it upright whilst Adam climbed up under her and then grabbed her jesses. Unfortunately we realised that the ladder was too short. We then repositioned the ladder so that Adam could get on to the lower branches of the tree, which he managed to do. We kept the torch beam on Cremorne while Adam slowly edged along a large bough getting ever closer to her. (I should add at this stage that one of Adams hobbies is rock climbing so scaling trees is something that he is pretty much adept at, though doing it in the dark whilst holding a small torch in his teeth is some achievement.) Gradually he got to within about 4 feet of her and was nearing the point where he could reach out and grab the jesses. But then Cremorne became agitated and looked as if she would take flight. Everybody froze, I held my breath, nobody spoke. After a while she settled back down, but then all of a sudden just took off, not to fly away, but just hopped up to a branch at the top of the tree in a totally inaccessible position . My heart sank again and all the hope of getting her back seemed to float away. I was cold,hungry and pretty much exhausted, it was about 9pm I had been on the go since about 7 am.

We all deliberated about our next move before deciding to leave her where she was and return the next day.

 

Monday 24th January. Adam and myself started out early again, unfortunately having to drive through Gloucester to cross the River Severn and subsequently not reaching Cremornes position until about 8am. She was sitting happily in the same tree! Luckily we had Adams camper van this time so at least we could sit inside and watch her from literally only about 30 feet distance. We met the local farmer and a host of local people as we sat trying to lure her down to some food on a line for about 5 hours. She did not seem interested in us at all and just sat there watching the world go by. It was very cold and we were gradually working our way through all our food supplies, our belief that we would be successful gradually decreasing with every passing hour. Some local residents came to visit us at regular intervals; I was not sure if they felt sorry for us or whether they found our intriguing situation quite entertaining. Anyway they asked lots of questions about Bald Eagles and stated that if we were still there at tea time they would bring us soup and beer. There really are still some nice people left in this world; I was amazed by the generosity and the offers of help that we received throughout the week.

But as luck would have it soup and beer were not to be and at around 1.00 pm Cremorne took off and flew downwind to the south east of Arlingham. We quickly found her using the Telemetry but had to use Adam's van as she had gone so far, she then proceeded to play cat and mouse going round in circles across numerous fields and making us cover a considerable distance on foot. Every time we got close to her she just took off again before finally disappearing out of sight going south. We returned to the car and drove around the area only getting infrequent responses from the telemetry. We ended up at the end of Passage Road right next to the Severn and decided to follow our now faint signal on foot. We followed the footpath along the edge of the Severn before the Telemetry signal took us in land towards Arlingham church. After about an hour we found her in the top of a very large line of silver birch trees but as soon as we approached she was off again heading directly towards the river which was about ½ mile away at that point. We ran after her and found her quickly to our surprise in the middle of the pathway on the bank next to the river. There were people walking their dogs further down the pathway so we knew that we had to do something. I watched her while Adam crawled along the bank in the hope of getting close enough to run up and grab her. It was a good effort but when he got to within about 10 meters she took off to my horror across the river which is about 400 meters wide at this point. I did not think she would make it, she was very low and close to the water, but she kept going and going and much to my relief eventually glided up into a tree right on the waters edge south of Newnham in between Bullo and Portlands Nab.

It was now late afternoon, we could not cross the river, so I sat there and watched, Adam went off for some food, there was little else we could do, apart from keeping watch in case she flew back over to our side of the river. We had phoned the Centre as soon as she re-crossed the river so Holly and Simon who we had telephoned made their way out to Newnham from the Centre at Newent. After about an hour I heard them on my portable radio and from the opposite bank guided them in to the approximate location of the Eagle, where with the assistance of another telemetry receiver they saw her high in a tree at the end of a small paddock right on the edge of steep bank which dropped directly into the fast flowing and very dangerous River Severn. After discussing our options and because the roads in and out of Arlingham were to be closed that night we decided to drive back through Gloucester round to Simon and Holly`s location and try to get up into the tree to get her.

Now remember at the beginning of this story where I mentioned my dad’s old beach casting rod. We had discussed the possible use of a fishing rod with a hook on the end the previous evening when our attempt to catch Cremorne by climbing the tree had failed. By chance when I had left home that morning, I had retrieved the fishing rod from under my stairwell and put it in the back of the van along with one of my wife`s kitchen hooks that we use to hang various frying pans on. At the time I was not sure why I did this I suppose I just thought that they would come in handy.

Adam and I eventually made it to Holly and Simon`s location where we formulated an audacious plan involving a ladder and the fishing rod. In order for this to work we needed Cremorne to be perched in such a position that her mews jesses as previously mentioned were hanging down below her, which in this case they were not due to the size of the branch that she was sitting on. We sat back and waited for her to adjust her position and for night time to develop in order to maximise the use of a powerful torch to temporarily blind her again and keep her still. About a half hour later she suddenly turned on the branch which allowed her jesses to hang down behind her. It was dark enough by now so I assembled the rod taping the pan hook to the end. We were concerned that if we snared the eagle as it was then the rod might break or come apart so we attached a creance (nylon line) to the hook and threaded it down through the rings of the rod. Lucky for us the landowner had lent us a ladder which we slowly manoeuvred over some fencing to a position directly under Cremorne in the tree. At that point she must have been about 20 feet plus above us. What caused us some concern was the fact that we were right on the edge of the riverbank with a drop of some 15 feet down directly into the fast flowing water. What had initially looked like solid ground behind the tree was in fact just brambles. The edge of the bank and the beckoning water was a little too close for comfort.

Simon and I slowly raised the ladder up vertically but trying to angle it away from the river. Whilst we supported it, Adam climbed up the ladder and Holly put the spotlight onto full beam and pointed it directly at Cremorne. She remained unmoved whilst Adam slowly got to the top of the ladder and pulled up the rod. He extended it up above himself and gradually got the hook end into position to try and snare the jesses. His hand was firm but trying to manoeuvre a fishing rod in such circumstances was like trying to thread a needle from 12 feet away.

The jesses have a slit measuring about 3 cm long at the end of them and he attempted to get the hook into one of the slits for what seemed to me like an eternity in slow motion. Every time he got close, the leather jesses moved or twisted round , then all of a sudden he was there, I could see the tension in the rod, jesses and creance. In my excitement I grabbed the creance but in doing so I let go of the ladder. Lucky for me Adam was already on his way down and Simon held the ladder firm. I immediately realised what I had done and helped out but without letting go of the creance. Once Adam was safe on the floor, and not in the river, we increased the tension in the creance which slowly pulled Cremorne off the branch and down onto the floor by Simon who quickly took hold of her. We had got her at last. I cannot put into words how overjoyed and relieved I was, almost immediately I tried to call Jemima on the telephone to let her know the good news but my hands were shaking and I just could not press the right buttons on the mobile. Holly did it for me instead. Happiness all round what an eventful 7 days it had been. Success in the end but only after sleepless nights and anxious moments of stress and exhaustion. Cremorne looked tired and off colour, she was handed to me and after negotiating a few fences we drove her home back to Newent. On arrival we weighed her gave her some food and put her on a precautionary course of antibiotics.

I think she was glad to be home.

 

I would like to thank Jemima and all the Staff at ICBP especially Adam, Holly and Simon without their support I am not sure I would have lasted the week and may well have never got Cremorne back.

Full credit to Marshall Telemetry systems which without on the many occasions that Cremorne disappeared from view we would never have been able to re locate her.

I have studied the route that Cremorne took on her days out, it roughly worked out to be about 26 miles in distance but that does not take into account all the circuitous detours that along the way she went on. So the distance she covered was probably a great deal longer. The distance that we ran, walked, climbed and scrambled over was in all probability even longer.

Mark Parker
January 2011

 

 

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