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Case Studies: 2006 - 2007

An Odd Trio

Precocial birds, (i.e. those that have full downy feathers when hatched and able to follow mum and feed themselves within an hour or two of emerging from the egg) are difficult to rear on their own.
Without either mum or another sibling, they become extremely stressed, battering the end of their box or cage with their little bills in a frantic effort to escape, trampling their food and refusing to eat.

In contrast, put the youngster in with another one, and the difference is extraordinary. Everyone's stress levels drop, including ours! Last summer, we happened to have admitted, all within two or three days of each other, an orphan mallard duckling which some children were harassing, a gosling and a baby coot.

An unlikely trio maybe, but the three grew well together, going outside when they were old enough and swimming together in the little pond.

Of course, the inevitable eventually happened, in that the duckling and coot reached maturity long before the gosling. Before release of the first two, therefore, we integrated them with a group of young swans, so that the gosling was not on its own after its two little litter-mates were gone.

 

A Barn Owlet

On the 1st. October, a young barn owl, still with downy feathers, was found on the ground near near Clun, a small town bordering Wales. Three nights later, an owl expert we knew who happened to be ringing barn owls at that time, took it back with him to Wales and fostered it into another barn owl nest with two other chicks, just a few days younger than ours.

On the second attempt of placing it in the nest, it stayed and settled in with the other two. Two nights later, it was not in the nest, and we feared the worst. Two weeks later, however, all three were seen sitting close together on a beam in the open barn. The foster- parents must have continued to feed it even though it was only in the nest for such a short time.

 

A Sparrowhawk

Every August and September, we receive a number of juvenile sparrowhawks that have flown into windows, usually when swooping after some little bird. A more unusual case last August was a young sparrowhawk that had flown in through an open back door, right through the house, and crashed into the inside of the front window! The impact was so hard that she fractured her wing. The wing mended and she was released five weeks later, hopefully to stay away from houses in the future!

 

A Red Kite

In the summer of 2004, we had a Red Kite brought to us from Wales with septic arthritis of the leg. It had only been hatched a few months previously, and the prognosis was not favourable. However, with treatment it recovered enough to be transferred to the kite rehabilitation pen in Wales from where it was ringed and released.
It was seen a year and a half later fit and healthy, still in the area where it had been released.

 

Two Swans

On 7th July, we had two separate swans brought in. One, a one-year old, had hit power lines, fortunately sustaining not too much damage, and the other, a cob, had been around for a month or so on a private lake on his own and becoming increasingly unsteady on his feet. He put up little resistance to capture.
A blood test revealed that he was not suffering from lead poisoning, and, going on his symptoms, we treated him for a fungal infection of the lungs.

This particular treatment is a 28-day course, by the end of which he had put on weight and was looking magnificent. The two had really bonded, so we decided to release them together on the private lake from where he had come.

Although the youngster would have been too young to have paired for breeding, they nevertheless stayed there until well into the winter, when eventually they flew off together.

 

A Baby Kestrel

A similar case to the above, but with a difference. One evening right at the end of June, a nestling kestrel was found on the ground and taken in by the finder. It appeared to have bruised one wing, presumably in its fall from the nest. Two days after its admission here, I received a phone call from a farmer who had found a collapsed nest with four baby kestrels on the ground.

He had tried putting them back in a tree in a makeshift nest, but was sure the parents had not been back. However, he was keen to rear and release them there and wanted advice. We discussed the various possibilities he had for suitable accommodation, and in the end he opted to build an extension on to the front of his rather old summerhouse. I then mentioned my little orphan, and he agreed to try it in with his four.

A week later, I took it up to his farm and was delighted by the ample-sized aviary he had knocked together coming out from the front of his summerhouse. Our orphan was a little smaller than his four, but he nevertheless thrived in the company of his own kind.

The two bigger youngsters were released in early August from a nest-box on top of the aviary with back-up food provided. I returned a couple of times to check on the little one's progress, and he and the remaining two were released from the aviary later the same month. They were seen in the area for some time afterwards, and the farmer continued to put out food for them until they no longer wanted it.

 

Yellow 80R (A Swan)

"80R", as we knew her, was a swan from Bridgnorth that we had in more times than any other wildlife patient. Sometimes on her own and sometimes with her mate, she was admitted a total of eight times over the last five years, each time with an angling-related problem.

Her mate had come in once with a blood lead level so obscenely high that someone facetiously remarked that we might as well sell him for scrap! With immediate first aid on arrival and subsequent intensive treatment, he survived against all the odds, helped, no doubt, by the presence of his female whom we had caught, again with fishing-line hanging from her bill. A year and a half later, he died, and she never found another mate.

On her eighth admission, when Jo, my assistant, was called out to rescue her, she died on the operating table with a massive bundle of fishing-line wound round her tongue, her bill and down her throat.

 

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Wildlife the charity has treated this year includes: Ducks, Swans, Other Water Birds, Raptors, Owls, Game Birds, Corvids, Pigeons, Doves, Garden Birds, Hedgehogs, Badgers, Squirrels, Otters, Foxes, Deer, Bats, Rabbits and many other species.