Free-range Parrots - a meeting with John Strutt in Cumbria

Scarlet macaw hanging around in the gutter.I'd first heard of John Strutt in 1999 via an Internet Forum - For the Love of Greys. I was seeking advice on free flying my baby CAG hen but the subscribers advised me to clip Artha 'for her own safety.' In one message I was told that someone in UK free flies a flock of greys. The writer doubted whether it was possible. Fifteen months later, I had tracked John down via The Parrot Society and he had invited me to Cumbria to see for myself.

So in June, we were driving from the railway station down blossom-edged lanes through the nearest village. Four blue and gold macaws swept past our car going in the same direction. It was like something out of Alice in Wonderland.
'Some of ours going home,' said John. Artha on my shoulder, wearing a harness, might have looked wistful if parrots can show that emotion.

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Conservationist fulfils his dream of letting nature take its course

African grey parrot sitting outside at Eden Place

EDEN Place, near Kirkby Stephen, is aptly named as its land, along with that of neighbouring Hartley Fold, has become a 900-acre “garden of Eden” devoted entirely to nature.

Every year it attracts an increasing number of wild animals, birds and butterflies and the wild flowers and wetland plants, which flourish in different areas, attract a variety of insects.

John Strutt, now in his 60s, is the man responsible for this “paradise”, above which colourful parrots and other exotic birds grace the skies as they fly free, writes HELENE PHILLIPS.

In 1994, the area became a nature conservation area, named the John Strutt Conservation Foundation in recognition of the generosity of its “creator” and his long-standing concern for conservation.

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