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LAST UPDATED 28 March
Bird Welfare Report
Pigeon
This guy came to us with a ruptured
crop. the crop is like a first stomach for a seed eating bird, it is
at the front in the breast are just below the neck. This condition
can be caused by a pigeon overeating and causing strain on the crop.
if not treated straight away, the bird will die of starvation.
After a 30 minute
operation at our local vets to clean and stick his crop back
together, this lucky boy came around. He is now recuperating, we
hope to release him again in a couple of weeks.
The past few months have been very, very busy on the small
animal and bird rescue front. Jon and Beth have had a steady
stream birds to be rescued and many to be hand reared.
The majority of birds were chicks and fledglings, taking up a
huge amount of our time as they require hand feeding every hour
or so. However it’s good to see them eventually feed themselves
and even better when they fly away on release.
Over the past few months we have hand reared many pigeons and
collared doves as well as a pair of house martins, a blue tit, a
starling, two swifts and event a carrion crow.
Mortimer the crow came to us as a baby black bird, or so the
caller thought. He was no blackbird; although very young he was
a huge chick and ate almost three-quarters of a tin of Pedigree
Chum on his first day with us. During this busy period,
Mortimer, along with several other chicks, had to accompany
either Beth or myself to work so that we could continue to feed
them throughout the day. Morty was even given permission to stay
in my hotel room in Great Yarmouth where I work most of the
week.
We eventually released Morty at our new house, but he loved it
so much he didn’t want to go. He roosted in the garden at night,
followed us around all day and even tapped on the windows when
he wanted feeding. Visitors were often very surprised to see a
large black crow swooping down and landing near them, squawking
for some attention.
We haven’t seen Morty for a few weeks now. We hope he’s got a
mate and finally left us.
In 2007 we have saved the lives of 100's of birds. Some of which
came into us as chicks which had to be hand reared reared before
release, while many came in with road traffic injuries, attacked by
cats and even some that had been attacked by humans. Some of the
100's of birds we hand reared in 2007 This magpie was hand reared
on cat food.
Blue tit
Despite out best efforts and our vets, this swan did not survive
from being poisoned by fisher mans lead weights.
This young Starling was hand reared and released after several weeks
of very time consuming care.
 Stanley the Swan we rescued TWICE !
 We
received a call one Friday night about a sick male Swan. We were not on
call at the time and was just about to go out, but how could we not do
our best when the member of the public was prepared to wait with him in
the dark to protect him from foxes, for as long as it took us to get
there. He had found Stanley limp and lying on some railway sidings,
there was no water around and as he had some injuries we believe he had
flown into something. Swans need water to take off, if it wasn't for Mr
Massey, Stanley would without doubt would have died.
We wrapped the Swan up in a towel and by the time we got back to the
car, my arms were ready to drop off with his weight. He was examined by
Jenny the vet at Bill Bowler's, then Stanley was left to rest overnight.
By the morning he was full of life and hissing, yippee, so we went off
to pick him up.
We initially took him to Rushcliffe Country Park, but what we learned
the hard way, is that mating pairs are very territorial. A resident male
pulled Stanley into the water and attacked him, Stanley cowered and swam
into the bulrushes, getting his head stuck in some wire fencing. So I
had to wade in, shoo off the nausty male and rescue Stanley for the
second time.
We later released him at a boating lake where we often visit him and
watch him swimming around with his harem of ducks, so if your ever in
the neighbourhood, please take him some corn or a piece of bread.
ARCHIVE STORIES
The past few months
have been busy at our house with a steady stream of birds and hedgehogs.
Over the past three months we have had 7 pigeons in and all but one has
recovered and been released back into the wild. We have also had 2
hedgehogs in which have been nursed back to health ready for release.
For some reason we have been inundated with pigeons in all shapes and
sizes? Two baby pigeons came in which needed feeding up and several ill
pigeons which needed medication. One poor fella came to us who had chip
fat thrown over him by the horrible owner of a Kebab shop on Mansfield
Road in Nottingham. Luckily 'Chippy' was released a few days after Beth
painstakingly cleaned him up and kept him warm until his natural oils
reformed.
Chippy before
Chippy after
Billy Winkle was
released after seven weeks living in our shower cubicle recovering with
a poorly leg. All space at the inn was full over Christmas, so what
better place to keep a pigeon than a nice warm shower! It did cause a
few interesting conversations though with our visitors over the
Christmas holiday!
Billy Winkle was eventually released at Rushcliffe County park, it was
great to see him fly for England, he was obviously so happy to be
released! His place in the shower was quickly filled with a poorly
pheasant. He came to us very week, we didn't expect him to last the
night but so far so good, we'll keep you posted.
Mother & 13 Babies in Rescue Drama!
 There
are better places for mums with 13 children to take their young ones for
a day out than the centre of Nottingham on busy Maid Marian Way. But
that’s precisely where this young mother had herded her little ones –
just outside People’s College, in actual fact. Time to AARU to come to
the rescue!
Phone-op Anne alerted driver Ronald to the plight of these ducks in need
and he set off at once to help them out. Along with his wife and the
People’s College staff, the feathery family were somehow placed into
boxes, which must have been quite a task! They were then transported to
the River Trent Embankment – a much safer and more suitable place for
them to be. Ronald described them "sailing off in a very happy and
determined convoy." He believes that they originally came from the canal
off Wilford Road, navigating the dreadful traffic on Castle Boulevard
and Maid Marian Way!
Well done to Ronald, his wife and to Anne for making sure they came to
no harm.
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