Buzzard with damaged eye

This month has been quite busy in the hospital, both with injured and sick wild birds and the start of the baby season. At the time of writing this month’s news we are looking after nine baby Tawny Owls as well as three of our own Harris’ Hawk chicks and two baby Hawk Owls. More about the babies below. At least the hospital staff are now beginning to realise that it is spring and that summer may just be round the corner.

Back to the wild birds. We have seen twenty-one wild birds (including the nine baby Tawny Owls). Because of the serious nature of some of the injuries, many of them were unable to be rehabilitated. However two are currently receiving treatment and one has already been released back into the wild.

Some of the birds we have treated this month were:

• Three Tawny Owls with serious eye and /or leg damage probably from road accidents, and one which had a Frounce infection.
• One very thin Barn Owl with a swollen right shoulder.
• One Buzzard with a damaged right eye, brought in to us by an RSPCA officer.
• One Sparrow Hawk with Frounce.
• One Kestrel with a wing fracture.

We started to treat a badly injured Sparrow hawk with wing and head damage but it failed to respond to treatment.

We are continuing to treat two birds; one is a Tawny Owl with eye inflammation. It is receiving eye drops twice a day. The other bird is a Sparrow Hawk with a simple wing fracture (without any major complications). It is healing well.

We treated a Little Owl that came in to us a bit unwell and very under weight. It was well fed and put on weight so was released back into the wild a few days later.

Harris' Hawk at 5 weeks

As I mentioned at the start of this report, the hospital is a bit like a nursery. We have nine baby Tawny Owls which are uninjured and are with us because they have fallen out of their nests. They are all doing well and will be released back into the wild when they are adult and fully fledged, as part of an ongoing study. It is always better for the baby if it can be returned to its nest if possible.

We are also hand feeding three Harris’ Hawks that hatched in the hospital about seven weeks ago. They are with us as they will be trained for use at the Trust.

And as I write, two baby Hawk Owls, about two weeks old, have been brought into the hospital. They were hatched by the parent birds in the aviary. In fact five babies have hatched; three have been left in the aviary for the parents to feed and bring up, while the two in the hospital will be trained for Trust use.