The People
High Flier Diana Dobson’s passion job REBECCA WILSON Diana Dobson
THE UNSTOPPABLE Diana Dobson - Aviary Manager of the Marlborough Falcon Conservation Trust - received a Queen’s Ser vice Medal for ser vices to wildlife conservation in June. It’s a well-earned accolade for a woman who has worked closely with Marlborough vineyards, including Brancott Estate and Lake Chalice, to restore New Zealand’s native falcon to the region. While Diana’s focus is kārearea, her dedication to bird conservation means no bird is turned away, as evidenced by her recent adoption of a colony of 34 critically endangered
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black billed gull chicks. When a vet rang her after being delivered a cardboard box full of eggs, there was no dallying. “I went to pick them up and as I was driving back to Kekerengu, where we are living with our daughter, some of the eg gs were hatching as I was driving. We had 34 chicks by the 8th of December, and my daughter had our third grandchild on December the 11th, so quite a lot going on with me in and out making sardine and pilchard smoothies for this lot,: she says. “Shorebirds are not birds I’m familiar with, but there was nobody else here to take them
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on. I had to keep the colony together; it’s the first time a whole colony has been raised.” While the black billed gulls will take over nine months of dedication, Diana has given ten years of her life to the Marlborough Falcon Conservation Trust’s effort, which has seen 68 kārearea released in the region, making up one percent of the wild population, and many injured falcon rehabilitated. There is no textbook for raising and rehabilitating kārearea. But for Diana, it’s a skill that comes naturally after 45 years practice. “My New Zealand grandmother and
my father were strong nature people. I inherited that gift. I always knew about birds – nests, feathers, eggs, fledgings; I had an innate knowledge.” S he also had a ver y supportive mother who, despite being a busy sister in a hospital, would trip around English hedgerows with Diana on the back of the bike to look for nests. Since Diana was a child, she has rehabilitated and released birds of many species in England, Ireland and South Africa. When Diana first met her husband Steve, she immediately fessed up to ‘loving birds’. “He thought I