I FLEW WITH A VULTURE CALLED KEVIN TODAY!

1st December

A day to remember for it is my granddaughter Eleanor's 23rd birthday. I've written a card but found no one to carry it to the uk yet. I am reliably informed it will take until her 24th birthday if I post it here! So, late it will have to be and I shall email instead.

It will also be remembered as the day I flew with a vulture. What a thrill and such a magical experience to be in a thermal, rising high with another tandem paraglider and an Egyptian vulture called Kevin. Well, what else?

Kevin and Bob are two Egyptian vultures that were tossed out of their nests – vultures can usually only raise one at a time so the weaker is expendable but as Nepal's vultures are dying out in their millions these two have been rescued and taught to fly with paragliders as part of an ongoing raptor rescue program. Many birds are rescued each year which are successfully rehabilitated and returned to the wild. Some cannot be released for a variety of reasons and these are cared for and trained for paragliding or falconry and the money raised goes towards conservation projects.

The reason the birds are dying out is the veterinary drug call Diclofenac which is an anti inflammatory. Nepal is basically Hindu and cows are considered sacred and not killed even when old and ill. When they are given Diclofenac to ease their suffering this is not expelled from the body. So when the cow eventually dies and vultures come to dispose of the body they die of liver and kidney failure. Because of this the white backed vulture is dangerously close to extinction.

One of the projects that the Blue Sky Paragliding supports is a Vulture food table program. Farmers are able to bring their old cows that have not been treated with Diclofenac to a central point where they are looked after until they die. They are taken to a food 'table' where they are skinned (the proceeds from the hide goes back to the farmer and his village) and vultures come in and dispose of the body. Most people have seen this on television – a carcase can disappear in an hour. Imagine then how many vultures attend to make this possible and then imagine that they have all just gorged on a cow with Diclofenac – every single one would die.

Vultures work in disposing of carcases of all sorts is vital. In India I remember seeing animal carcases weeks after a cyclone had ripped through and although human bodies had been removed it took ages to dispose of the animals and all because of Diclofenac. Unfortunately although it has been banned for veterinary work since 2006 it is still available in Pokhara and elsewhere for humans and on the black market.

In Africa they are also losing their vultures but not to Diclofenac. There poachers have realised that vultures spiralling down on their dead animal give their position away so they have been poisoning carcases deliberately to wipe out the vultures.

The run and leap into the sky today on a tandem flight from Sarankot is something I shall always remember. There were small clouds and a slight haze over the lake and Pokhara below but as soon we had launched, along with a second tandem, Kevin was released from behind us and he led us to a thermal for he had been watching and waiting avidly. We spiralled up way above Sarankot, there were a few other paragliders around but they steered well clear of us. I had a pouch with cubes of buffalo meat in it and when we were settled I had to take a piece of meat out and place it between thumb and finger of a leather gauntlet on my left hand, cover it over with my right because vultures can see 15 times better than us and Kevin's job was to keep showing us where the thermal was and in reward, at the signal of a whistle, come and collect a piece of meat. The reason they fly in thermals is to get high enough to see where there might be other vultures spiralling down to a feast many miles away and it takes lots of energy to fly so soaring in thermals means they can conserve it.

We eventually had to come down but the views were terrific and it seemed all the snow covered Himalayas were visible. The hillsides were like giant staircases with tiny terraced fields and roads wound in and around and in the valley from the mountains the Seti river full of ice blue glacial water looked like a trickle. We spiralled down over the fish farm and area where I was abducted by the fisherman a few days ago and landed quietly on the grass beside the lake. My wonderful pilot called Jess from America had done a sterling job in giving me the most amazing experience and another tick in my list of things to do before I die!

If you come to Nepal this should be a must on your list of things to do - further info look at www.parahawking.com