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On behalf of everyone at Vale Wildlife I would like to wish all our supporters a Very Happy Christmas and all the best for 2008.
I haven't got a lot of time to write posts at the moment as we are very short-staffed at present plus we are working our Christmas rota now so more staff are off than at normal times.
Our Small Mammal Room is still full to bursting with juvenile, underweight hedgehogs although a large number of the bigger hedgehogs we had have now been fostered out to willing volunteers and we are very grateful to everyone who has offered to help us out by taking them on.
We have had a few birds of prey in lately, a couple of tawny owls, both with leg fractures, a barn owl and a buzzard.
The one bird that everyone associates with Christmas is the robin. We had a very sorry one in the other day. Someone had put rodent glue traps out because of a rat problem. These things are unfortunately legal but in my opinion should be banned as they cause major suffering to anything that gets caught on them. Legally they are supposed to be placed where nothing but the target species (rats in this case) can get access to them but this is often ignored.
The poor robin had flown down onto this trap and his legs and wings had immediately stuck fast to the glue.
We managed to free him from the trap but not without the loss of many of his wing and body feathers. He has survived but will need to stay with us for several months as he will not be releasable until his feathers have regrown fully.
Very briefly in this short post:
The hedgehog found on the lit bonfire causing burns to her side is still recovering here. Her wounds have almost healed now and she is due for reassessment later this week.
The tawny owl which had a leg fracture pinned has now had the pin removed, the fracture is stable and he has started to use his foot well - we are hopeful that he will be releasable shortly.
The merganser is still with us and doing well but because of his feather problems we cannot put him outside until the warmer spring weather, as he has a problem with waterproofing and quickly gets chilled at the moment.
I will bring you more news within the next few days, time-permitting.
Enjoy your Christmas.
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