Ozzy update

Ozzy the skunk is still with us & she is doing really well. She's put on loads of weight & loves being picked up & fussed. She'd spend all day being carried round if we let her - trouble is we don't get much work done when she's out, she's very distracting, & unbelievably cute!!

About 70 hedgehogs in at the moment, mainly youngsters & about three quarters of them are now on antibiotics as they have infections. Hedgehogs seem to pick up all sorts of infections, especially intestinal, really easily, so this situation is not at all unusual.

We have been able to do a lot of releases lately too (in between rainy days!) Many of the birds that we took in several weeks ago as tiny, bald babies are now reaching the age where they need to go off & find their own territories & can cope without our help. This time of year is probably the most satisfying with everyone's hard work finally paying off with animals being released on a daily basis. Our 23 fox cubs will soon be off to their temporary release pens too & will be back in the wild where they belong in a few weeks.

More support from our mystery benefactor.

I just wanted to thank, once again, our mystery anonymous donor, who has now given Vale the amazing total of £6,220 since December 2008. We would love to know who you are, to be able to thank you in person & to let you know exactly how much your generosity has helped countless wild animals in these tough times.

Still busy

We are well into July, usually our busiest month of the year for casualty numbers and we are certainly very busy with a large number of birds in particular being brought in. Many, many catted fledgling birds and sadly too many coming in much too late for antibiotics to do any good. If a bird has been caught by a cat, even if there are no obvious injuries, they must receive life-saving antibiotic treatment within a few hours otherwise they are very likely to develop blood poisoning.

A very happy ending to one of our stories - the RTA male otter that we have been treating for a week made a full recovery and last Saturday we took him back for release at a fantastic site (pictured) not too far from where he was hit by a car. It was amazing to watch him go and although he was a bit reluctant to leave the carrying box initially, he soon realised that he was home and started exploring one of several pools that he was released into. A very happy ending.

A couple of exotics have been brought in lately by the RSPCA. Firstly, an Asian Water Dragon, a stray found in someones garden and most recently, and probably the most unusual animal we have ever taken in, an American striped skunk!! Despite their reputation she is really cute, only a youngster and she has settled in well. She does smell a bit, but so far she hasn't used her main defence, spraying, and we are hoping she doesn't decide to start!!.

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.