Video 2 of 2:
This poor little city pigeon came in to me yesterday.
When I first saw him, gosh, I was quite shocked!
I’ve seen canker in eyes before, but never this bad! He is very thin, and clearly hadn’t eaten for a while- he was very cool under his wings too.
He’s been in an incubator, and once up to normal temperature was given fluids and food directly into his crop, and of course meds for his canker.
Interestingly, when I’ve had birds like this before, the canker doesn’t seem to be in their beaks (never say never though).
I gently opened his eye and massaged the canker out of his eye! He must feel so so much better already for having it removed.
Please note: usually canker needs a good 2-3 days of treatment before it is able to be removed safely, but again, this lesion in his eye thankfully wasn’t adhered to the eye, and came out very easily with a little massaging.
Please excuse the mucky towel- when I deal with the canker birds I have in, I always handle them last (to avoid any potential infection of my healthy birds)
Oh and please excuse the commentary as well, lol I don’t know how to switch off the sound on videos I post!
If anyone is able to help out, towards the costs involved in caring for the birds I have in, I would be very grateful.
This is a link to my gofundme page:
https://gofund.me/1e9341c8
And my PayPal address is:
[email protected]
Video 1 of 2:
This poor little city pigeon came in to me yesterday.
When I first saw him, gosh, I was quite shocked!
I’ve seen canker in eyes before, but never this bad! He is very thin, and clearly hadn’t eaten for a while- he was very cool under his wings too.
He’s been in an incubator, and once up to normal temperature was given fluids and food directly into his crop, and of course meds for his canker.
Interestingly, when I’ve had birds like this before, the canker doesn’t seem to be in their beaks (never say never though).
I gently opened his eye and massaged the canker out of his eye! He must feel so so much better already for having it removed.
Please note: usually canker needs a good 2-3 days of treatment before it is able to be removed safely, but again, this lesion in his eye thankfully wasn’t adhered to the eye, and came out very easily with a little massaging. Please see second video of canker removal!
The day has come to release 8 ducklings I’ve had for the last couple of months.
I don’t often get to post release videos, because the majority of the birds I get in, are “soft released” which means they are released from aviaries or pens from my garden, and then they have the choice whether to stay, or go, or come back etc.
Of course, I don’t have a river in my garden, and so these ducklings were released in a way that is called “hard release”. This is when you take the bird/animal to a new location, and they’re released to basically fend for themselves once they’re released.
I wish these little guys the very best of luck… I sat watching them for ages, and they looked like they were having THE best time!
I’ll post another video in the comments of them taking to the water!
If anyone following my page is able to make a donation, I am always so truly grateful for all help I receive. I wouldn’t be able to continue doing what I do if it weren’t for getting donations.
These little guys have been eating their way through lots of duck crumb and pellets- they’re greedy little monkeys!
My gofundme page is:-
https://gofund.me/1e9341c8
My PayPal address is:-
[email protected]
These (not so) delightful creatures (ticks) were removed from a poorly young wood pigeon.
The pigeon had been sat in a grass verge all day, and was cold, thin, and very weak. I’m not surprised with the size of these draining the poor little guy!
In past years, usually, once September hits, I see an increase in the amount of birds that come in to me, with ticks. Previous years have seen lots and lots of collared doves with ticks, but this year, so far, it has been juvenile wood pigeons. Infact, I’ve never seen so many woodies with ticks as I have in the last few weeks!
Perhaps it’s because I get a lot more birds in now, but I do think the weather being quite wet, then humid, has had a lot to do with the recent tick populations!
If you don’t know how to remove a tick properly, please don’t, because if they are not removed fully intact (including all mouthparts) then nasty infections can result.
They’re horrible little things!
Fun fact: a full tick if accidentally dropped on the floor- will bounce like a tiny rubber bouncy ball 🤦🏼♀️
If anyone following my page is able to make a donation, I am always so truly grateful for all help I receive- always x
My gofundme page is:-
https://gofund.me/1e9341c8
My PayPal address is:-
[email protected]
Lmao this is a bit of a funny video.
(It wasn’t meant to be)- it was supposed to be showing you what an adult jackdaw should look like compared to my featherless one!
But my oh my…. This bird was absolutely crawlingggggg with flat flies. I’ve never had so many flat flies on one bird before.
They were attaching themselves to me, going in my hair, under my jumper… it was just horrible.
Haha and then add to the mix, a poor bird who was unaware the problem the flies were causing me… and he was just biting left, right and centre!
Eurghhhhh I hate flat flies 🤭😂🤦🏼♀️
Here is an adult jackdaw who I’ve had in for a couple of months now. Sadly, he will likely need to be with me for a year or so for him to be able to return to the wild.
His feathers were all dry, brittle, snapped off and shredded when he came in, as a result of being fed totally the incorrect diet by the original finder who had him six months or so.
If anyone following my page is able to make a donation, I am always so truly grateful for all help I receive, and can of course show receipts for everything I buy for the birds.
My gofundme page is:-
https://gofund.me/1e9341c8
My PayPal address is:-
[email protected]
And my Amazon wishlist is:-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/3CR27BRVAURFS?ref_=wl_share
I was in two minds whether or not to post this video, but I guess, I just wanted to show the “other side” to rescuing… the side where I cant fix or rehabilitate a bird… no matter how much I want to, or try.
This was a heron I took in overnight, to make him more comfortable when vets were all closed in town… he very very sadly had to be euthanised at the vets the following morning.
When I lose a bird, or I get one in that I can’t help… it breaks my heart… it really does 😢
This little guy was found on the side of the road. He was stone cold, gasping for breath, his nostrils and beak filled with fly eggs and a really deep single puncture wound to his back.
I wasn’t sure he would make it, because he was so poorly, but I’m pleased to say he’s doing great, and I’m confident he will be absolutely fine now 🥰
Updated video in the comments as it wouldn’t let me post two videos.
This beautiful little guy came to me a week or so ago.
He had been attacked, and had lots of injuries, but the main issue being the writhing mass of maggots that were feasting within his crop. His crop was ruptured but the maggots, thankfully, were only a day or so old (you can tell by the size of the maggot)
When people see maggots on a bird, a lot of people would be very quick to say omg, it needs putting to sleep asap… but that’s not always the case at all. Infact, I’ve had a lot of birds in recently that have maggots on/in wounds, and most of these birds have been saveable and have recovered beautifully.
Flies are opportunistic and will seize the opportunity especially in warmer weather to lay eggs in infected wounds for example. Actually, although people associate maggots as disgusting things, they can actually be of help! If caught early, like in this birds case, the maggots had only been feasting on the soured crop contents, and had not caused irreparable injuries to this bird. I cleaned out the wounds and in a few attempts, flushed out as many maggots as I possibly could. He was treated with ivermectin (for feather lice/mites) which killed any remaining maggots too.
His crop was glued, and amazingly, his crop held well together. You need the crop to hold up enough so that you can put the liquid hand rearing formula in, and it doesn’t seep out any holes!
Of course he has been on pain relief and antibiotics too.
I am amazed, and so pleased to say this baby is doing really well, and I now have no doubts that he will go on to be released in a few months time.
Who would have thought a bird like this could survive? I, of course, did.. but that’s because I’ve seen so many birds like this. I just need the bird to fight as much as I will fight with him…
Pigeons continue to amaze me every day 🥰
If anyone can donate to the care of the birds I have in at the moment, I would be so truly grateful.
https://gofund.me/1e9341c8
Usually, I say no to the little garden birds like blue tits, sparrows, blackbirds etc.
There are a few reasons for this, but my main reason is the frequency that these little guys (especially babies) need feeding. To give you an idea- hatchling sparrows need feeding every 20mins in daylight hours. So in 12 hours, they’d need feeding a whopping great 36 times, compared with 4-6 times for pigeons. As you can imagine, it’s a huge time and care commitment to take on these babies.
Another reason is that I don’t usually have any more of the same species of small garden birds in, and so in my opinion, they’d do better being tested with same species.. so that they don’t imprint on me.. because of course, my aim is to always prepare birds to be released back to the wild where they belong.
I’ve been contacted a lot recently about fledgling birds- and unless they are injured, lethargic, or in imminent danger, then their parents should always be the ones to raise their little kids! Parents do a much better job than a human ever could.
That said… if people are struggling to find help for their found baby birds- if they’ve been caught by a cat for example, they need antibiotics asap.. and waiting even until the next day is a risky game.
Nestling birds require additional heat, they cannot regulate their body temperatures at all when they’ve hatched. They would have the body heat from their siblings, but also from their parents… and so a baby away from its parents would require a temperature controlled environment like an incubator (I have three)! They need to be kept at 32-35 degrees, which as you can imagine is pretty toasty. I often get told that peoples houses are warm… but I can guarantee a persons home would not be at the 35 degrees needed!
Anyway, despite initially saying no, because the finders couldn’t find any other help for their little babies, I agreed to take in a hatchling sparrow, and a nestling blackbird.
As you can imagine, th
Lol Seymore always makes me laugh. He’s such a cheeky chap.
I’ve had this metal feeder for ages not in use… and so got it out the other day (in an effort to train my chickens to use it so that the wild jackdaws are not eating six large ceramic bowls full of food each day)!!
At this point there was no food in it, but it’s like he knows there will be food in there !!
https://gofund.me/1e9341c8
I usually say no to the “smaller garden birds” for a number of reasons- I don’t have huge amounts of experience with them, they seem a lot more stressy and likely to just die for no apparent reason (stress kills), the frequency they require feeding (ever half hour when babies), the food they require… it’s all very different to pigeons/doves.
But here we are with this beautiful little blackbird! She came to me looking extremely poorly and like she wouldn’t make it. But it’s amazing what fluids and heat (incubator) can do!
Here she is thriving… starting to feed herself too which is great!
I’ve secretly really enjoyed seeing her progress 🤭… but no, I will stick to my pigeons!
https://gofund.me/f086b2d3
The house of a Crazy Pigeon Lady 🤦🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️
A couple of days ago, I was in bed and was woken up by a pigeon cooing at about 5am. I could’ve sworn there was a pigeon on the windowsill. I got up to check, and there was nothing there, so thought I was either going mad, or dreaming.
Anyway, I came home today and looked up and saw this!! Proof!!
(Excuse dogs crying in the background- they knew I was home but hadn’t gone into see them yet!)
Back in November, I took in this little black headed gull. He had a broken wing which didn’t heal to allow him to fly again.
I’m absolutely gutted to say that I found that he had passed away just before bedtime tonight.
He was such a sweet little bird with a huge character. He loved playing catch with his food- I wish I had got a video of it now :(
He lived with another gull, although I think their relationship was more “tolerate” each other than one of love.
I also lost a little dove tonight- presumed hit by a car, but unfortunately within an hour of me getting her home, she had passed away. On the outside, she had feather loss and bruising, but I suspect the shock or potential internal injuries were the reason she passed away.
Losing birds is the worst feeling in the world 😢
