Just as the summer holidays are getting into full swing, so the Humboldt penguins’ annual moult does too. As you visit the penguin pool over the next few weeks you will see some very plump and scruffy looking penguins waddling about. This is a natural part of their life-cycle which occurs after breeding season.

Being an aquatic bird, they must change all their feathers at once to ensure that they remain well insulated and able to swim efficiently when they are hunting. A few weeks before they moult the penguins experience a huge increase in appetite (which is the best time to book a ‘Meet the Penguins’ Feeding Experience, as this is when you’ll really get a good crowd around the fish bucket).

The reason for this increase in appetite is to ensure they have enough body fat to live off for up to 10 days, as they are unable to enter the water to hunt while they are moulting. Their feathers lose their waterproofing qualities during this time. Geoff is currently in the lead, having already started losing big chunks of feathers, which are being pushed out by the new ones growing underneath. By the time August arrives he will be sporting brand new pristine plumage and be the envy of the rest of the colony!

Many of the other residents of the Bird Garden are nesting and raising young themselves, but it is not only the birds who have been carrying out parental duties – one of the keepers, Lisa has been working day and night hand raising two Brown Lory chicks for the past month. This is because their parents, Charlie and Peppermint (who can be seen by the Mini-beast Trail, near the flamingos) had been trying to feed them feathers and other unsuitable items.

You can follow @HarewoodHouse on social media for some behind the scenes footage of these two new noisy additions, and make sure to follow the Bird Garden activities on #TakeoverTuesday.

Trust Director, Jane Marriott working in the gardens.

I have always been impressed by the dedication and passion our volunteers demonstrate through everything they do for us at Harewood. However, digging up old tulip bulbs on a sunny afternoon with the garden volunteers in the Walled Garden, I also realised that there is a camaraderie and generosity between the volunteers that makes even the most mundane tasks enjoyable.

Our volunteers come from such a variety of backgrounds and with different reasons for volunteering and that is why they are such a fascinating group to spend time with.

In our garden group, there was a huge diversity of backgrounds which was reflected in our conversations, ranging from the weather’s impact on gardening this year (we concluded that we had leapt from winter straight into summer, with no time at all for the spring season!) ….. to new ways of working being championed by a major retail bank. This particular company had banned mobile phones in the workplace and conducted all meetings standing up. Perhaps something to consider….?

As we turned over the soil, chatted in the sunshine and worked our way up the borders, I was struck by two things: how lucky I was to have a job where everyday I get to meet fascinating new people, outside in such a glorious setting and secondly how fortunate we are, that even in the frantic pace of life today, people are still prepared to give their time up for our charity and make such a difference.

The volunteers are a great advert for Harewood – they are passionate about the place, warm in their welcome and they share our ambitions for Harewood, which we are all determined and excited to realise over the next few years. It was a privilege spending time with them, even if I did perhaps, do more talking than digging!

To keep up to date with behind the scenes stories, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

There are over 200 active volunteers working in the Harewood House Trust, giving around 20,000 hours of free support each year to maintain and promote the House, the Gardens and the Bird Garden.

During National Volunteer Week at the beginning of June, members of the Harewood House Senior Management team turned their backs on their paperwork to get hands-on with the volunteers, and spent a half day working side by side in an area very different to their own.

Over ten members of staff took part, which included Trust Director Jane Marriott picking up a spade in the Walled Garden and putting in some of the groundwork ahead of the soon-to-open Seeds of Hope exhibition. Damian Clements, Head of Finance, cast aside his numbers to lead a new charge – that of the Shuttle bus that transports visitors around the Estate. And Trevor Nicholson, Head Gardener, buried his head in the Spanish Library, researching plants from 1918 together with weather conditions recorded in journals during that time, ahead of the new exhibition.

Many volunteers have been with the Trust for over ten years, with new volunteers joining all the time. They possess such a wealth of knowledge of the Collections, of stories relating to people and places and in addition to that, a real passion, dedication and commitment to their work.

The experience across National Volunteer Week was a huge success and the plan is to roll the opportunity out to further staff members across the Trust.

Damian Clements, Head of Finance; “This was a great initiative. I had a fantastic experience with Skipper Tim. It was lovely to spend a couple of hours seeing what he gets up to on his rounds and there’s even more to it than I realised.”

Comment from Jules Caton, Interim Marketing Advisor; “I found it a real privilege to spend the time feeding chickens, meeting goats and collecting eggs and I very much enjoyed meeting the team who were working in the Walled Garden. This was a great experience.”

To keep up to date with news and behind the scenes from the Harewood House Trust, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

In September 2007 to celebrate the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Harewood House staged a production of Carnival Messiah a huge spectacular theatrical event. It’s creator was Geraldine Connor a theatre director, educationalist and musician from Trinidad.

Harewood’s David Lascelles was the executive producer and instigator in bringing Carnival Messiah to Harewood “We wanted to acknowledge our history but at the same time to celebrate the present, I don’t know of any more exuberant, more spectacular, more inclusive expression of contemporary Caribbean culture than Carnival Messiah.

Carnival Messiah 

Carnival Messiah is a radical reinvention of George Fredrick Handel’s Messiah the production fuses together traditional and contemporary music, dance and carnival practices.  The idea came from Geraldine’s desire to celebrate both her Caribbean and British roots.

It was first created with students at Bretton Hall, Leeds University where Geraldine was a lecturer and then performed at the West Yorkshire playhouse in 1999 and then in Trindad in 2003 and 2004.

The 2007 the production at Harewood House was performed over two weeks in a big top tent in the grounds of the Harewood Estate.  With a cast of over a 100 community performers from Chapeltown, Leeds and legendary international artists.

Now a cultural landmark in both Leeds and the Caribbean, Carnival Messiah set the tone for what would become Geraldine’s enduring legacy, one of equality, diversity, empowerment, and inclusion in society through the Arts.

Geraldine Connor Foundation

After Geraldine Connor died prematurely in 2011, an arts organisation was established to continue her legacy.

The Geraldine Connor Foundation Geraldine’s works with people from all backgrounds to develop creative projects. Core to GCF’s work is the creation of opportunities in the Arts for talented young performers from diverse and challenging backgrounds. GCF’s creative projects cover the widest possible spectrum of art forms, and the organisation’s unique events and performances aim to enrich people’s lives.

Ultimately, GCF seeks to grow the family which Geraldine herself was at the heart of; a family of individuals whose lives were changed by her intense creative energy, her ability to see potential in people and her enormous generosity of spirit.

gcfoundation.co.uk

 Carnival Messiah The Film

To celebrate 10 years since Carnival Messiah was last performed at Harewood House a film of the production has been created. Ashley Karrell the film maker was a friend and mentee of Geraldine’s and directed this lasting legacy.

The full version of the film can be seen as part of Leeds International Film Festival on Tuesday 7^th November, 8.15pm at Leeds Town Hall for tickets please contact leedstownhall.co.uk

This year, Harewood House and grounds are taking a closer look at the Victorian era inspired by ITV’s period drama Victoria, which used Harewood as a major location. Although when the young Princess Victoria visited Harewood in 1835, the Bird Garden had not yet been built, (opening some 135 years later!), the era still had a major influence on the zoo you can see today.

It was during this period that animal collections and scientific study of the natural world began to develop. Zoological collections in Britain were beginning to evolve with menageries of species kept for display and travelling circuses full of dangerous and exotic animals becoming more common place.

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) was founded in 1826, shortly before Victoria’s coronation (1837 – 1901). As a leader in the field, ZSL’s aim was to promote the study of animals and their ecology, an ambition which remains at the heart of zoological collections today. London Zoo officially opened its gates to the public in 1828, giving people the opportunity see animals from across the world and learn more about exotic species.

The Victorians were pioneering in promoting research, discovery and conservation of the natural world and organisations founded at the time are still of great importance and relevance today. In the later part of Victoria’s reign, the Plumage League was founded (1889) by Emily Williamson, to combat the killing of birds to use their feathers as fashion accessories. She later joined forces with the Fur and Feather League (1891) to create the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), now a leading light in avian conservation across the world.

The era saw unparalleled developments in our understanding of the natural world with great naturalists such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace making discoveries that would fundamentally change how we perceive the world around us.

Since 1970, the Bird Garden at Harewood has promoted an understanding of birds and their environment through conservation, preservation and education, very much as the pioneering zoologists of the Victorian times had done. Today, we host a number of research projects each year with students coming from Askham Bryan College, Leeds Beckett University and University of Leeds among others. Studies on the Chilean flamingos, Humboldt penguins and our wide range of pheasants are either published in journals, ongoing, or in the process of being completed. These projects are all focussed towards improving the husbandry and welfare of the animals in our care. We often receive correspondence from other universities and zoos asking us to assist with projects, the results of which could be put towards the protection of birds and their natural habitats.

We recently welcomed a pair of Omei Shan Liocichla, a small Chinese songbird, to the Bird Garden. This species is listed being vulnerable to extinction in their native habitat and have been incorporated into a European Studbook which will help their ongoing survival.

With this addition, Harewood Bird Garden now partakes in 12 coordinated breeding programmes and species monitors, with 16 of the species kept in the Bird Garden classified as threatened on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of endangered species. These can be seen living with another Chinese species, the silver pheasant in the aviaries below the crane paddocks.

In the neighbouring aviary we have two new red billed blue magpies from Nepal. These are striking blue birds with long striped tails. They have settled in very well and are currently nesting, with two eggs as I write this.

Another of our European Breeding Programme species is the palm cockatoos. These charismatic black birds with their bright pink cheeks have laid an egg again this year, the third year in succession making them the one of only two breeding pairs in the UK. The last two eggs have been successfully reared and we hope for a repeated performance again this year from our confident young family.

For those of you who want to know more about the Bird Garden and to support our ongoing conservation work, there are great opportunities you can access. From Bird Adoption to penguin feeding or our brand new Junior Keeper Experience launched this season, your support helps us to continue our charitable work, maintain and developing Harewood for the public benefit.

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Thank you.