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Community Home

We had a morning meeting with our trustees, architect and other advisors to look at the design of our wildlife hospital. Now that we have a dedicated fundraiser for the hospital things seem to be moving forward which is great.

 In the afternoon it was the all important hair appointment at the hairdressers. I vowed to grow old gracefully a few years ago – then vanity took over !! Anyway it’s a forced hour or so off which is great but I have a job not to fall asleep in the chair!! 

Home in time to do the final feeds for the deer. The red deer do sometimes use the extra shed but generally they are all in with the others. Chaela’s injury is just a pink mark now.

The Reds sometimes use the new shed

They all get on well

 It was soon time for the trustees meeting which starts at 5.30 p.m. and finished after 1 ½ hours which is practically unheard of but meant I had time to get ready and dash of to a talk at Nailsea. Home by 10.30, fed the otter ( who was rather cross as I was late !) – my last job and fell into bed!

Hope - "You're late!!"

Thought I was going to have a clear day today but had a call at short notice to go to Tiverton for an interview with Spotlight in connection with the vaccine programme for badgers. I went to a farm where sadly the owners were experiencing a tb outbreak but they were very friendly to me despite my thoughts on badgers. ( the last one I went to, I wasn’t allowed on the farm, the interview had to take place off their property). It’s hardly surprising when you are in such a devastating situation.

 Chaelea’s wound is healing really well and Lisa is now leaving it uncovered. They have both grown so much over the last couple of weeks; in fact I think Freckles is catching her up in size!

 We had a photography club out in the evening. Not the best of weather with sudden showers of the heavy rain but they managed to get some pictures of the animals. The evening time is usually the time to see more when the site is quieter. Mind you, the next couple of days will be hectic getting ready for our healing weekend this weekend. We are expecting quite a few visitors.

Chaela's wound looks so much better!

Freckles is catching Chaela up!

Lisa is back and there are lots of animals to be assessed. She was able to do the blood tests on the two last badger cubs and we had a Lesser Horseshoe Bat that needed to go to Langford veterinary Laboratory for post mortem.

Both foxes have been looked at and have a chance of getting better so that’s good. Sadly a call out to a casualty fox near Clevedon ended in it dying during the journey back to the centre. There was no obvious evidence for its collapsed state – sadly you cannot win them all.

The young roe that came in on Sunday night had deteriorated and Lisa thought it best to put it to sleep. It was not eating and appeared to have had head trauma. It had taken some lectade by syringe when I checked on him last night, but she had taken a turn for the worse.

Terry, one of our volunteers had travelled the 5 fox cubs to their new enclosure and as luck would have it, the address was very near to a call out from a vets who had a young fallow fawn and wanted us to take it so Terry was able to pick it up on the way back. So another fawn to join the kitchen club. Hopefully once he has bonded with the others, I can move them down to the fawn unit. It looks like it’s going to be Thursday now.

Young nestlimg swifts

Some young swifts have been brought in. Found on a farm, they are very hungry. Laura is going to take them on. They make a magical noise, constantly talking when they want their food. They maybe not the prettiest of babies but certainly the most fascinating. These birds which are incredible flying machines which we will rear until they are the correct weight to fly. Once old enough, we will toss them into the sky so that they can hit the thermals and start their 3 year journey of constant flying, eating, sleeping, preening and mating on the wing – never stopping -flying millions of miles until they are old enough to breed and capable of taking off from their nesting site.

Chaela was given an anaesthetic so that her wound could be cleaned and debrided. It is larger as the stitches have broken down in places but it

Chaela under anaesthetic for wound cleaning

is looking much better and she has put on a kilo in weight so that’s great. Little Freckles was so pleased to see her coming back to their pen

It’s one of those days that when you realise that many little miracles happen every day. Life’s good.

A new fawn for the kitchen