🦆 Yesterday was yet another release day.
Another 11 ducklings gone back out into the wide world.
We will only have another 3 releases to do now until all ducklings have been released.
We have one lot left outside, which should be in the next week or so, then we have 2 lots still inside under heat. One lot are rhe babies whose mum was killed down Fen Road and the other lot are 2 tiny ones that came in within days of each other but from the same location so I'm guessing they were probably from the same clutch.
🦆 Another release day today...
14 ducklings... 9 are females and 5 are males, along with Russ, the adult male who was shot in Ruskington.
A safer area for him and he can choose whether to stay or not.
🦆 So this bunch of 11 turned up early this morning! 😆
Sadly, mum had been run over down Fen Road and a lovely guy driving home from work spotted all the ducklings running around randomly.
They were quickly rounded up and popped in a bag for life and taken back to his home until they could be brought to me this morning.
Thank you to Kaykeigh and her partner for taking care of these 😍
I think these are the noisiest bunch yet 🙉
🦆 A second lot of ducklings have been released today.
6 of these came in as a clutch, and were joined a few days later by a lone one from Spalding as it was a similar age.
They have been released back on to the lake where they were originally found and where the finders live locally and are going to keep an eye on them 💚
🦆 Today we released our first lot of ducklings of the season.
2 of the 8 came in to us as yellow ducklings which, as you can see, turned into lovely white and white speckled beauties!
They were released at my friends lovely huge lake in the middle of nowhere so they will have the best start to their return to the wild.
Their exit video was quite long and slow so the below video shows them venturing out on to the lake after the release, as I can't upload more than 1 video when I upload posts from my phone.
They will be support fed if needed here and kept an eye on to ensure they are all getting on OK.
Stay safe little ones ❤️
🕊 This adult wood pigeon came into me 5 days ago after being spotted struggling to fly.
He had some slight swelling to his right eye and some feathers missing so we presumed he had either flown into something or had had a slight encounter with a car.
Luckily he only needed some pain relief and a few days rest before my volunteer Angela returned him back to where he was found.
As you can see he was more than ready to get back out to where he belonged ❤️
🌱 A quick update on our outside project...
We had a quote for various work to be done outside to improve the enclosure and aviary area which came to quite a lot (over £1000)🙈
Over the last few weeks I've been picking up slabs that have been donated, cheap gravel boards and grass seed.
My initial plan was to turf it but with the cost working out at nearly £400 I have decided to seed it instead.
Luckily with the new duckling enclosure that was also done there won't be any ducks on there for a few weeks so it should give it time to grow and set ready for lots of webbed feet and nosey beaks!
Below is a video showing the before, the after video is in the comments (for some reason it wouldn't let me post 2 at the same time).
I'm still in need of lots more slabs if anyone has any that they could donate to us.
🦆 11 days ago we had a call out about a mum and her 12 ducklings that had nested and hatched in the car park at B&M in Spalding.
Members of the public and staff were worried about her getting out of the car park and to the river safely.
A few calls had gone in to another rescue about her but we got asked to go over as we were closer and we were getting worried that people were trying to interfere with her and that she may get spooked.
On arrival it was clear she was desperate to get to the river and our initial thought was that we could maybe guide her out and walk her down to the river but she wasn't having any of that and a couple of times decided to hide in the hedges away from us.
The next time she emerged we decided to do a catch and relocate, so guided her towards the outside of the store where we could net her and her ducklings more easily.
After a couple of escapees were rounded up we loaded them all into the car and drove to the nearby river for release.
These are the trickiest rescues to do because if mum gets spooked and flies off you're left with a big bunch of ducklings to take in if she doesn't come back so it's always quite a tense time to try and get her without scaring her, and then keeping all ducklings in sight too to ensure all are safe and sound.
Luckily this one went well and as you can see from the video she got a free ride to the river to save her legs all that walking 🤣
🐦 Today saw the release of a moorhen that came into us late one night at the beginning of the week.
He was picked up by one of my volunteers, Chantelle, who spotted him in the middle of the road not moving.
It looked like he had had a small collision with something (possibly a car) as he had a couple of small wounds and was suffering from concussion, although luckily had no broken bones!
He's had some pain relief and a few days rest and was released back to the location that Chantelle found him... not in the middle of the road though obviously 🤣
🦢 Today we've just released a young cygnet that came in 6 days ago.
It had appeared in someone's garden, presumably after crash landing nearby.
It had tried to fly off but didn't gain enough height in the space available and subsequently crashed again, luckily with no injuries.
Instead of releasing straight away we brought it back to give it a few days of R&R.
It's been munching its way through lots of chopped lettuce, wheat, corn and swan and duck pellets.
And as you can see from the video below, it was keen to get back up in the air and we watched for a while afterwards as it followed the line of the river and across the fields into the distance.
Safe journey little swan! ❤️
UPDATE - Thank you everyone, new homes now found for them all 😊
🦆🏡 New Homes Needed
We currently have 8 domestic muscovy ducks in, which are now in need of a new forever home.
They are all quite young so I'm not 100% sure on sex but it appears that there are 3/4 boys and 5/4 girls.
It would be great if someone has lots of space to give a home to all of them, taking into consideration space available and mating behaviours further down the line, but would be happy to let them go in smaller groups or pairs.
These are flight capable birds but have currently had their wings clipped for safety here, so in future it will need redoing once they go through a moult.
If you are able to offer any of these lovely birds a home, or know anyone who can, please get in touch with me.
Photos and/or videos of set ups will be required.
Their Back Story......
Three weeks ago I had a call to help with rescuing some ducks and a goose that had been seemingly abandoned in a farmers field.
None of the nearby houses owned them and neither did they belong to the farmer whose field they were on, so the farmer gave us permission to go in and catch them.
By the time we got there sadly it already had got too dark to see them and we had to give up.
We went back the next day and luckily found them right at the edge of the field by the roadside.
It took 3 of us 25 mins to catch them as they are all flight capable and decided they wanted to test out our catching skills! 🙈
They were also quite muddy and stinky after spending the previous few days wandering around the field, which had previously had cattle on it.
Once they were all rounded up we headed back with them.
Video below is of them getting stuck in to some food shortly after arrival.
🐦 We had 8 young gulls this year which came in to us after being found on the ground and umable to be returned to their nests.
Most gull species have suffered a severe decline in population and are on the amber list in the Birds Of Conservation Concern report, with Herring Gulls now being on the red list.
I've heard of, and seen, some shocking stories of needless cruelty to gulls, so I'm really thankful that we can at least help the few who come in to us.
We currently have 3 adult gulls in, which I will post about soon.
The video below is the release of the last 4 youngsters to come in to us (the first ones were released a couple of weeks before).
Stay safe gullys 🤞
🐦 At the beginning of the month we had a young housemartin come in after the nest had collapsed. 2 had fallen out, however only 1 had survived the fall.
A couple of days ago it was released and flew off brilliantly. There was a group of about 6 or 7 other housemartins all flying around (which I tried to get in the video 😆) and we watched for a few minutes to see it join in with the aerial acrobatics 🤗
🐦 Just over a week ago I had a call from a very distressed gentleman who had come across an adult herring gull trapped and tangled up in the netting of a goal at a football club.
The man had his dog with him at the time so couldn't do too much to try and free him and sadly the football club didn't want to help 😥
He went to take his dog back home and agreed to come back while waiting for one of our volunteers to attend.
Angela, one of our transport volunteers, went out and managed to free the gull before he had even got back.
Although his feathers were quite ruffled there were no visible injuries, despite being completely tangled up and hanging upside down.
However, with constriction injuries the damage is not always visible straight away and so he was brought back for monitoring.
Luckily, gulls have lots of thick feathers and so I think this is what saved him from any severe injuries.
A couple of days ago Angela had the pleasure of releasing him back out and hopefully he will stay away from any netting in the future 🤞
🦆 Another day, another duck release.
This morning it was the turn of Axl and Whitey.
I got a late night message at 11.30pm about a week and a half ago about Whitey after she had been hit by a car on Fleet Street. I asked the people that found her if they could bring her straight over to me.
Luckily she suffered no broken bones, just a wound to her bum, a small graze on her leg and some missing feathers. She was cleaned up and given pain relief and the next morning she was up on her feet eating and drinking as if nothing had happened!
2 days later we were releasing 2 males back to the duckpond and spotted Axl struggling to walk.
He was quickly caught and brought back with us, he must have felt like he was at home again as we had him in as a duckling last year after an episode of struggling to walk 🙈.
Both have recovered well and have been in our outdoor enclosure for the last 5 days.
They are regular visitors to where we have released them so felt it only right that they were both returned there 😍
🦆 11 days ago we rescued a mum duck and her ducklings.
The ducklings were spotted in the road whilst mum was sitting in a garden struggling to walk and get about.
We managed to catch mum and round up her ducklings and brought them all back together.
Mum had no obvious wounds or injuries to her leg so was just given a short course of pain relief and some rest and tlc.
Sadly, her 2 smallest ducklings didn't make it over the next few days, but her 3 bigger ones ate like horses and generally got up to normal duckling mischief!
This morning we released her and her 3 ducklings back into a local garden where she will have access to food and water for as long as she needs or wants.
She can either choose to stay here, as many other mallards congregate, nest and raise their own broods here, or she can choose to leave.
🦢 A swan release that Megan (one of my volunteers) did for us recently.
Rumble came in to us after being attacked by another swan after he had inadvertently ended up in their territory.
The aggressor is well known to us as we rescued him last year - he was the swan that came in covered in blood due to a small cut on his beak!
Well poor Rumble was nearly drowned by him but luckily was spotted and rescued and brought to us.
He had inhaled lots of water and sounded very gurgly but after a course of antibiotics and some tlc he recovered well.
He was released into a different location into a non territorial flock.
It's not very easy filming a release on your own so Megan did a quick video as he swam off
🐦 Although I'm full for most birds at the minute I picked up 2 blackbird nestlings today as a pit stop on to Wild Things Rescue tomorrow morning.
It was presumed that the 4 chicks had fallen out of the nest during the storms yesterday, although no sign of the nest on the floor itself and sadly 2 were dead with 2 remaining still alive.
When I got them back home and assessed them I saw they were riddled with fly strike (fly eggs).
Every bit of feathers were covered along with every opening infested... ears, nostrils and mouth.
The short video clip below is just a snippet of the nearly hour long process it took me to remove the flystrike.
They are both quite weak and there may still be some eggs deep down in the ear canal that I just can't reach.
Over the next few hours they will be kept warm as they need to be warm for their body to digest the critical care and hand rearing formula to make them strong again but monitored closely as warmth will hasten the egg hatching process - a double edged sword.
They are already perking up a little bit and have had an ivermectin drop applied to kill any maggots that may still hatch out.
Fingers crossed we can turn these 2 around ready for their transfer tomorrow 🤞
🦆🦢 All the babies clean and ready for bed... just got to have some duck weed supper first 🤣
