Video clip of our otter.

Video clip of the otter being fed this afternoon. Still making great progress & we are hoping he will be released in a couple of days. He certainly enjoys his trout!!

Click the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QmvKCMd1hQ

Otter making progress

Supper time - taken tonight.

Otter update

The otter that was brought in by the RSPCA on Saturday was x-rayed this morning and I for one was not looking forward to the results.

Anaesthetising him to allow us to position him for the picture is a mammoth task in itself as otters are probably one of the most difficult species of British wildlife to handle. They have an incredibly nasty bite, they cannot be picked up by the scruff, as we would with a fox, as they are pure muscle and there is nothing to get hold of on the neck. A grasper is almost impossible to use on them (and we very rarely use them anyway as they are mostly unnecessary and cause a great deal of stress to the animal). They are so streamlined that they just slip straight through the grasper.

In the end he was quite obliging and went into the crush cage quite willingly, and I was then able to hold the anaesthetic mask over his face with hardly any resistence from him.

We (myself and Tim, our vet) then took 2 x-rays and, while he was knocked out, Tim took some blood from him to make sure he had no other problems.

Much to our relief, the x-rays didn't reveal any fractures or other problems and so we think that his unwillingness to use one front leg is simply because of soft tissue damage and is too painful to move.

He does seem to be improving slowly so we are treating him with anti-inflammatories, pain relief and antibiotics and will reassess in a few days.

This afternoon we took this picture of him flat out on his back where he had been sleeping peacefully until we went in to check on him.

Beautiful creature....

Following on from the excitement of having 3 peregrines in in just one week, when we seldom see them, another rarity for Vale Wildlife yeaterday was a beautiful adult male otter.

The RSPCA brought him in from Frampton-on-Severn in Gloucestershire where he had sadly been hit by a car the previous evening.

He had obviously sustained a blow to one side of his head & his shoulder area, although his injuries didn't look too serious at the initial examination. His one eye was red & inflamed & one of his teeth had been partially broken off, but no bones appeared to be broken so he was treated for shock, given antibiotics, & was settled into one of our badger pens, complete with infra-red heat light & a delicious trout!

This morning he looked a great deal brighter, although he had wasted our expensive trout (ungrateful otter!). He was given fresh water, as he had decided that his water tray would make an ideal toilet (!!), & we also put in a much larger water container to allow him to get right in & have a good bath if he wanted to.

Now he is more alert & active, we have noticed that he is not using his front legs properly, which is very worrying. It would be so sad if his injuries were too severe to treat - there are few enough of these beautiful creatures in the wild as it is. They are slowly making a comeback, now their habitats are getting cleaner, but we need every otter we can get to make sure that this trend continues.

We have now got to wait until tomorrow, when we will be x-raying him & our vet will be trying to find out what the problem is. Fingers crossed!!

To be continued....................

Peregrine photos

Here are a few of the photos that we took while examining the young peregrine from Worcester.

2 Peregrine Falcons in one day!

Firstly, a huge thank-you to everyone who came to our Open Day on Sunday & made it such a success. The weather was brilliant despite the forecast saying we would get heavy rain all day. I am sure the forecast must have put a lot of people off but the turnout was still very good & we took over £5,500 on the day! We are very grateful to all our staff & volunteers for the fantastic effort they all put into the day.

Next to our patients. We are now in the middle of our busiest time with dozens of new casualtires coming in every day. Despite 70% of our intake being birds, we very rarely see a peregrine falcon. Today, we have had two in! The first was a youngster from a well-known nest in Worcester city centre. This one is the first of the four chicks to have flown the nest, & was only on it's third flight when it was mobbed by a seagull & then by crows & magpies & ended up grounded, & according to the reports we had, injured.

It was taken to the police station & we collected it & brought it back to the Hospital for examination. Luckily it hadn't sustained any injuries at all, we think that the blood on its face was probably from its last meal! It was however, very stressed so it was put in one of our seclusion aviaries to calm down. We have now arranged to return it to its nest when it is dark so that it will not fly but will have the night to get over its ordeal & by the morning it should be back to normal.

The second one, a male, was brought in this afternoon with a serious wing injury. Unfortunately the wing was dislocated at the carpal joint & the tendons had been torn so we had no alternative but to put it to sleep. The bird had a BTO ring on & when we contacted them they told us that it was a 10-year old male - very sad.

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.