Hugh Warwick

Hugh Warwick, renowned author & hedgehog fanatic has confirmed that he will be attending our Open Day this coming Sunday (7th June). He will be giving an illustrated talk on hedgehogs as well as signing copies of his brilliant new book 'A Prickly Affair'.

Please come along & support us from 11am-4pm.

This will be your only chance to see what goes on behind the scenes in the Hospital & to see all the baby birds & mammals being hand-fed & looked after by our staff & volunteers.

Help us to celebrate 25 years of wildlife rescue

As well as being extremely busy in the hospital at the moment with baby birds & mammals coming in by the dozen, we are also trying to organise our 25th Anniversary Open Day which is being held at the Centre on Sunday 7th June.

We are hoping for good weather & need as many people as possible to come along on the day to help us celebrate this special milestone. Finances are strained this year, mainly because of the current global recession, donations are down & all charities are feeling the pinch. Show your support for our work by joining us on the day, see behind the scenes inside our Hospital, where we are looking after around 300 animals at the moment.

There will be loads of attractions: slideshows, charity stalls, loads of games for the children, fun dog show, raffle, tombolas, beer tent, cider, refreshments, live music, birds of prey static display, crafts & much, much more.

The day will run from 11am - 4pm so please, please show us your support & help us to make it a day to remember.

Leveret release 6 May 2009

Below are before and after photos showing a leveret when it first came in to the centre about 2 months ago aged just a couple of days old, and photos taken today when we took him for release at Slimbridge.

It was amazing to see him free in the fields, instinctively hiding in patches of long grass and behind mounds and tussocks, dashing between them, keeping low to the ground when he was out in the open. Considering he had never seen open spaces in his life, it just proved that most of a wild animals behaviour is instinctive and doesn't need to be taught, just perfected with time.

The release of an animal that has had so much time and effort put into it truly is the best part of wildlife rehabilitation.

Badly injured muntjac fawn

We have now had a third muntjac deer fawn brought in, I estimate only 10-14 days old. He has been badly attacked by something, my guess being a dog but I can't be sure. He has some bite wounds to his head and neck which aren't too serious but he also has a fractured skull which makes the prognosis for his survival pretty poor.
Feeding him is the most difficult task as I have to be so careful when handling him because of his head injury and he gets so stressed when he is handled that it has been impossible to bottle feed him like the other two muntjacs we have. At the moment he has to be anaesthetised in order for us to tube feed him without causing him too much stress.
I will keep you updated on his progress and we are all keeping our fingers crossed but I am not getting my hopes up too much.

A word of warning...again. Please DO NOT feed bread to birds in your garden. We have had three cases lately where people have picked up a newly-fledged bird (when they should all have been left alone), and fed them bread for over 24 hours before bringing them in to us. Bread does them no good at all, in fact it can often kill a bird, especially if this is all it is fed. If a bird really does need rescuing, get it to a rescue centre immediately where it will be fed the correct food from the start.

Babies, babies everywhere!!

Things are really starting to get busier now and combined with the fact that we are now 2 staff down, I think that the coming busy season will put us all to the test.

We now have eleven fox cubs and amongst the other youngsters we have in at the moment are baby squirrels, two muntjac deer fawns, baby blackbirds and robins and several baby pigeons, all needing regular hand feeds. This is besides the adult casualties that we are dealing with every day.

Natalie & Helen's Arctic Trek

Natalie and Helen left for their 250km Arctic husky trek last Saturday and we had a text from them on Sunday just before they lost signal going up into the mountains.
We had another text this morning (they got a signal on the phone very briefly). They said it's been very hard, trekking about 50km every day, and is so cold at night that their sleeping bags and their hair freezes!
It is their last night under canvas tonight as tomorrow night they are in a hotel having their first shower and first proper meal for a week.
We are very proud of what they have done to help Vale - maybe it will inspire other people to undertake a sponsored event for us.

Here we go....spring again!

Well, fox cub number 6 came in today, a tiny little thing with eyes still shut. It was found under a shed, and from the sound of it, it should have been left exactly where it was. Unfortunately as the cub was passed to us third hand we have no finder details, otherwise we could have taken it back.

We already have three cubs of about the same age which came in when they were only about 2 days old. These are being bottle fed every three hours and are making great progress despite a bit of chestiness when they first came in.

We also have two older fox cubs, a badger cub (pictured) and our first fledgling blackbird was brought in today too. It won't be long now before our rooms are bursting at the seams with young mouths shouting for food!!

First 2009 Fox Cub

We have now taken in our first fox cub of the year. We normally start to get them in during March, although we have had them in as early as the beginning of February before.

This little female cub was found on her own with no sign of any siblings or her mum. She is much too young to be without the vixen so the finder had no choice but to take her in. In this case it was the right thing to do, but often, young fox cubs should be left alone. If in any doubt, ring us or your local wildlife rescue centre for advice.

We really need to get another cub of a similar age with her as soon as possible to avoid her becoming imprinted on people, which is difficult to avoid when hand-rearing a single animal. If we do not get another one in soon, we will have to consider finding another centre with similar aged cubs that we can pass her on to.

We have also had a fledgling tawny owl in which was found sitting on a trampoline beneath a huge tree. Although tawnys are well known for their ability to climb back up trees to their nests, there was no way that this one would have got to that height and it was far too high for us to get him back there.

Despite his fall, he was totally uninjured and is doing very well with us, now feeding himself. We will shortly be passing him on to The Barn Owl Centre where they have adult tawny owls which adopt any youngsters which are put with them. This is obviously much better for the youngster and he will eventually be released back into the wild, probably with other young tawny owls.

Difficult times...please help!

The recession is taking its toll on all charities although the larger ones often have large reserves to fall back on in difficult times.Small charities such as ours have no such safety net, and with donations down by about 30% so far this year, we are getting very worried for the future.Please help us to continue our work and to get through this financial nightmare.

Get all your friends to support us too.How about organising a fundraiser in aid of Vale? A sponsored event, a coffee morning, a jumble sale or some other way of raising a few pounds. Every little helps!

We will celebrate 25 years of helping Britain's wildlife in June, please help us to make sure we reach our 26th birthday too!!

Please call us for advice if you have any concerns at all about wildlife, we will be happy to take your call and will give the best advice we can.

Thank-you all for your support - please get everyone you know to support us and tell everyone about our 25th Anniversary Open Day on Sunday 07 June 2009.

Countdown to the 'Mad Season'

Well, the baby bird and mammal season is looming once again and before very long our Hospital will be brimming with tiny mouths calling out to be fed every few minutes. We have all been enjoying the quiet (ish!) winter months but we are now gearing up for the intake of the majority of our annual patient total which come in between April and August.

We could see fox or badger cubs any time now with baby birds starting to hatch towards the end of next month.

One plea before the madness starts: Please, please if you think you have found an abandoned wildlife baby, ring your nearest wildlife centre for advice before picking it up. More often than not it will not have been abandoned but the parent will not come back to it while you are anywhere near. Many baby birds will spend several days on the ground when they first leave the nest, before they start to fly properly, deer fawns will be left sometimes for many hours while mum goes off to forage for food. They should not be touched.

A majority of the baby birds brought in to us have been caught by cats. Please try to keep cats in if you know there are baby birds around, but if your cat does manage to catch one, please take it to a rescue centre as soon as possible as it is vital that the bird receives antibiotics within a few hours for it to stand any chance of survival.

Please call us for advice if you have any concerns at all about wildlife, we will be happy to take your call and will give the best advice we can.