There always seems to be so much organising and worrying about gifts in December. It has so much hype on television, we are made to feel that Christmas has to be all about eating all sorts of food and having parties in lovely warm houses whereas sometimes the most important gift is your time. It’s so easy at this festive season, not to remember to be kind to people who would welcome that visit or telephone call. With nights being so long, people living on their own can sometimes go days without speaking to anyone and I’m sure that there will be less cards being sent now that our post is so expensive.
It’s the same with our wildlife as we shall be going into the three months when the weather can be the coldest and food hard to find. A dish of fresh water in your garden daily will save lives. I tend to keep an empty ice cream container by my sink over Christmas and all the cake crumbs, food remnants, crusts and over ripe fruit can be saved and put out for the birds. We don’t all have money to buy wild bird seed and fat balls, and these bits and pieces will be welcome by many. 50% of wildlife usually die within their first year, hunger and cold are the most contributing factors to them not surviving.
We don’t always know what happens to our animals when we release them. But we are very lucky sometimes to have bird ringers who will come and put rings on the legs of young birds as they are growing. It means that if these birds are seen by bird watchers, we get results of where they have been seen including the date. Sadly, we were notified that a Tawny Owl had been found dead in a water trough which wasn’t good news, but the records show that the bird was rung on July 26th 2012, when she was 4 months old. She was found in September this year, so she had lived for 12 years which was wonderful news. It just shows that getting animals back in the wild is really worthwhile.
Our wonderful staff and volunteers will be giving their time over the Christmas period to make sure that all our casualties will be snug and warm. We shall be open as usual throughout Christmas. So, I’d like to give a huge thank you to each of them for their dedication as well as a great big thank you to all of our supporters that make our work possible. From all of us at Secret World Wildlife Rescue, a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.
