Flicky Harrison chats to Lloyd Buck about living with feathered friends and their film adventures

TRAINING wild birds for television has turned into a full time career for Lloyd Buck.

The Somerset-based bird handler has had his charges star in Poldark, Top Gear, The Hollow Crown, television commercials and a Disney film called Born In China.

“It is a big screen wildlife movie and Ellie has a huge amount of sequence. She is a 15-year-old goshawk, and we flew her in Cleveland woodland. There is patch in the woods which matches the trees in China. In the film there is a wild goshawk and the tension builds as to whether it is about to attack a woolly monkey from North China,’’ said Lloyd.

Currently starring in the new BBC chilling drama Requiem are his five starlings who will also be flying around the Swindon Arts Centre this month in a new theatre show, Our Life With Birds, which Lloyd says is a talk with a twist.

Lloyd said: “We talk about what we do, the discoveries we make, and show footage of sequences that our birds have appeared in with people like David Attenborough. We let the birds fly in the theatre and it works well, very popular with families.’’

Along with the starlings, Lloyd and Rose will be bringing Lilly the barn owl and Bran the raven to Swindon. The idea for the stage show came from their wild life talks in museums and local groups.

The couple also train geese, swans and birds of prey such as falcons and peregrine hawks.

“We make a close social bond with the birds and we use their natural abilities in a special way, to get it right for the camera,’’ said Lloyd.

“One of the funniest was Autumnwatch when we did the Game of Crows starring Bran our raven. Bran is our most intelligent bird and good at problem solving,’’ said Lloyd, who has also worked with Steve Backshall on Live and Deadly and various other productions for the National Geographic Channel.

Rose met Lloyd when he moved to Bristol. She worked in a junior school but she had always been interested in birds and belonged to the Young Naturalist Society as a girl.

“When I met him I thought what a lovely job and when Lloyd had to imprint some swans and geese he said: You are the right sort of caring person to do that. So, I had to spend 24-hours a day with them from when they were first hatched, literally sleeping with geese,’’ said Rose.

Lloyd christened her Mother Goose and she says that even now they all come when she calls.

“All our birds fly free and they choose to come back,’’ said Rose. Lloyd agrees and says none of the birds are forced to fly.

“When we did the David Attenborough sequence with Greenland Geese that came to North Wales. Our geese flew with them but it was great to see them looking for us when they flew back,’’ he said.

It is not all work for the birds as Lloyd has played the piano since he was a child and in the evenings they have a singsong.

“The birds love classical music and so do I,’’ said Lloyd “The starlings like Mozart, in fact the composer had his own starling. They roost in the house by the piano and sing along. Bran has his own radio tuned to classic FM, he likes the orchestral sonatas,’’ said Lloyd.

Our Life With Birds, is at the Arts Centre, Devizes Road, Swindon on Monday February 26 at 7.30pm. Tickets are £17 from 01793 524481 or visit www.swindontheatres.co.uk