Balloons

Last night, while walking our dogs we found a balloon with a card attached asking the finder to fill in the location found & return it to a school in Reading.

The balloon had been entered in a race to raise money for WaterAid (a very worthwhile cause).

Raising money for good causes is great & should be encouraged but everyone should be aware of the potential damage to wildlife, particularly marine wildlife, from the ingestion of latex balloons.

The balloon in question had luckily landed just outside our deer paddock - had it gone into the paddock our deer would certainly have eaten the balloon. Potentially, this could have been fatal.

We support calls for the banning of mass balloon releases. Anyone who drops litter can be fined up to £2500, but spreading balloons around the countryside is not classed as littering!! Do you understand it? I don't.

The Marine Conservation Society can provide facts & figures on how much damage is done to marine creatures, especially turtles. Visit their site at http://www.mcsuk.org/

Please do your bit for charities (especially this one!!!) but don't do it at the expense of our natural environment & our wildlife within it.

Baby birds by the dozen...

It's now getting much, much busier at the Hospital. Dozens of baby birds are now coming in - yesterday we took in 13 young jackdaws, not all one brood, but three different ones. I wish that this blog had sound so you could here the racket they make as soon as they think they are going to be fed!!! Our staff need ear plugs in the Brooder Room at the moment.

The picture shows one of our 'nests' of jackdaws.

Birds such as these corvids (crows, rooks, jackdaws etc) are reared on Eukanuba dog food which has been soaked in water for around an hour with extra vitamins, minerals and calcium added. They do very well on this, putting on good weight and their feathers seem very healthy and strong. As soon as they are old enough we encourage them to start feeding themselves and gradually lessen the hand-feeding and human contact to prevent them becomming imprinted on people.

Other youngsters with us at the moment include baby great tits, robins, dunnocks, rooks, blackbirds and thrushes as well as fox cubs and young squirrels.

This picture shows one of our squirrels being hand fed using a milk substitute.

Many thanks to everyone who has sponsored Natalie and Helen on their Arctic Challenge so far. They still have a long way to go to reach their £6,000 target. Please support them by sponsoring them and help us to raise the funds to build our Vale Wildlife Education & Training Centre.

Arctic Challenge!!

Two of our supporters, Helen Colbourne & Natalie Gould, have bravely volunteered to drive a team of huskies 250km across the frozen wastelands of Norway into Sweden to raise much-needed funds for Vale Wildlife!!
They must be mad!!!
But with your support they want to raise as much as possible to put towards the building of the Vale Wildlife Education & Training Centre, a £400,000 project which we have now been granted planning permission for.

Helen & Natalie are aiming to raise a minimum of £6,000 in sponsorship for the trek which will take place in April 2009. Obviously there are costs involved in taking part in this challenge, so the more sponsorship they can get, the more money comes to the charity.
The girls have set up a fundraising page on the Justgiving website. To see their page & to donate online please go to http://www.justgiving.com/nataliegould
Alternatively sponsorship can be sent directly to us at Vale Wildlife Rescue, Station Road, Beckford, Tewkesbury, Glos, GL20 7AN. Please make sure you let us know that it is for the 'Arctic Challenge'.

As soon as we have sponsor forms available we will let you know & if you are willing to get sponsors for Helen & Natalie that will help to boost their total.

PLEASE BE GENEROUS.

Just so busy...

I hadn't realised it's been so long since I posted on here. It's been so busy at the Hospital I just haven't had the time to write.

We are now mid-way through our part time Wildlife First Aid & Rehabilitation course, which is going well with 17 students this time (we usually have a maximum of 15).

We will shortly be running courses actually at Vale as we are in the process of installing a temporary classroom which should be ready in a few weeks. This will tide us over until we can raise the £400,000 we need to build the Vale Wildlife Education & Training Centre next door to the Hospital.

At the moment we can only run the course from a local college once a year but we would like to be able to accommodate many more people interested in learning the basics of wildlife rehabilitation.

Our patient numbers are way up on last years & we are urgently seeking volunteer drivers from all areas who are willing to pick up small casualties from local areas surrounding their home & bring them to the Hospital. We are getting loads of calls from people who have found a casualty but are unable to get it to us.

If you can help us out with this please get in touch.

We now have 13 fox cubs in total, dozens of baby & young birds to feed, we have just taken in 3 tawny owl chicks & we are dealing with a huge increase in the number of deer coming in, mainly because of road traffic accidents....... & we haven't even got to the busiest time of year yet!!!

If you want to help us raise much-needed funds please organise a fundraiser of your own - arrange a Coffee Morning or jumble sale, think up a novelty sponsored event, run a marathon or come & help us at our weekly car boot sale, in our Charity Shop or at another fundraising event. If you want to help, we want to hear from you.

Lastly, for the moment, a plea from all wildlife hospitals:

• If you find a fledgling (a youngster, fully feathered apart from probably having a very stubby tail!) bird, do not immediately assume it has been abandoned or orphaned & pick it up. Most birds, when they first leave the nest, cannot fly well, if at all, but spend most of their time on the ground or in low bushes & branches, practicing their flight but are still fed by their parents. They should be left alone. If you have a cat, keep it in at this time of year as much as possible.
• Fawns (young deer) are left alone sometimes for many hours, while the mum goes off to feed. Do not go near them, but leave them alone.
• Fox cubs which appear to be abandoned are usually fine. Please seek advice from us or a similar organisation before interfering.
• IF YOU ARE UNSURE OF WHAT TO DO, PLEASE CONTACT US OR YOUR LOCAL WILDLIFE HOSPITAL / WILDLIFE RESCUE CENTRE.