It all began in the 1970s. My passionate interest in birds, that is. I was twelve years old. I loved watching and learning about them. Their mastery of flight, the wonder of long distance migration, and their infinite energy fascinated me. It is a passion that has taken me across the world, marvelling at the avian biodiversity that our planet offers. It also provided the bridge into a life-long commitment to helping free birds and other animals from factory farms.
For 10 years, I led professional wildlife and birdwatching tours to countries as diverse as Costa Rica, Morocco and the Seychelles. For 15 years now, I’ve made an annual pilgrimage to the Isles of Scilly. This tiny group of islands off the southwest coast of England is an important migration point for birds. It’s a point of convergence for birds and birdwatchers, or ‘birders’ alike. I have seen birds arrive from all points of the compass. The Northern parula from America, the Cream-coloured courser from Africa, and the Whites thrush from Siberia. Funny names, brilliant birds.
In an earlier blog, Freedom and Inspiration, I wrote about recently rescuing an injured kestrel and taking him to a local wildlife hospital for recovery. My heart soared when I released him. He flew off over the trees and away into the distance. He touched my life like no other. It reminded me of how hearing about the plight of battery hens for the first time touched me as it has so many.
It was 1983 and thanks to an organisation I’d not heard of before, called Compassion in World Farming. A representative came to my school and spoke about calves in narrow veal crates and pigs in dry sow stalls. What struck me most was the horror of the battery cage. Birds imprisoned in cages too small for them to even stretch their wings. On a barren wire floor that sloped in a way that increased the already unbelievable suffering. And it was legal! To a schoolboy bird fanatic, this was heresy, a crime against the natural world. I resolved to set them free.
It wasn’t long before I started my own local animal welfare group. I wanted things to change overnight. I still do.
My life changed dramatically in 1990, when Compassion’s Joyce D’Silva hired me. I was privileged to work with the organisation’s founder, Peter Roberts. He changed the way I looked at the world and showed me the value of patient reform. As a farmer, he understood that farmers weren’t the enemy. The real enemy was the system of intensive farming that has institutionalised the suffering of many millions of farm animals. He maintained that taking people with us, from all sectors of society, was the key to lasting change.
Today, my heart is for the birds regardless of whether they are a “broiler” chicken, a battery hen or a majestic bird of prey like the Marsh Harrier, my favourite British bird. Each and every bird is an energetic sentient creature that represents what I believe is important in life: freedom.
