Please consider a donation to HART if you enjoy this content – visit hartwildlife.org.uk and click on Donate
January / February 2024
Meanwhile it has been business as usual at HART, the wildlife rescue in Hampshire where I volunteer. Except that there is not really any such thing as usual business – there are always surprises, delights and so much to learn. For example, I have been helping to check and weigh hedgehogs and clean out their pods for over two years now, but until January 15th, I had never heard a hedgehog scream. I didn’t know they could. I had noticed in one of them that here had been no poo for two days running in spite of weight gain, so I alerted a member of staff about the likely case of constipation. For that reason the hedgehog was injected with fluids and that was what caused the screaming (I have seen this done before without any kind of protest). It was not a pleasant sound but at least if it happens again I will know what it is.
In the previous week, a deer concussed in a road accident had recovered and been released. I wondered how – they simply opened the door of the enclosure and off it went into the surrounding fields. Just before Christmas a fox presumed to have been hit by a car underwent surgery and is now recovering well at HART and it is hoped that she will be ready to be released before too long.
Also recently, a grey seal pup was taken in, a first at least since I have been there. The rescue manager Robyn has a great deal of experience with seals and so was contacted by British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) on the Isle of Wight. The pup, undernourished and with some superficial wounds. had a brief stay at HART before going on to BDMLR Cornwall Seal Hospital.
A concussed tawny owl made a full recovery and was released back into his territory.
Another temporary resident was, unusually, a domesticated white duck who had been noticed trying to enter a branch of Morrisons supermarket. Specifically, a Call Duck, of which I had never heard. The females have a very loud quack and have traditionally been used as decoy ducks, hence the rather unhappy name.
I was delighted to be able to offer to collect an owl from a rescue in Fair Oak near Southampton. It was only a short journey from HART but as is often the case it was the last half a mile which took much of the time – I drove up and down the same stretch of road over and over looking for a cottage, which was the address of the rescue, but it was not a cottage at all and so although it wasn’t hard to spot, it wasn’t what I was looking for. It can be the same when I’m looking for a book amongst the thousands we have in stock for a customer. It’s much harder when I think I know what it looks like and that’s how it gets missed. As I drove back to HART I kept wondering if it was a Barn Owl or a Tawny. When the box was opened on my arrival, to everyone’s delight, it turned out to be a Little Owl (as opposed to a little owl). Ridiculously cute but also with eyes that seemed to bore deep into my soul.
An injured badger was also taken in but sadly did not survive.
This Barn Owl, however, which arrived in very poor shape, has now recovered, with treatment and care, and has been released back into the wild.
All of this and so much more just in the last few weeks. We volunteers have mostly, at this time of year, been weighing, checking, feeding and watering hedgehogs as well as cleaning out their pods, keeping records of weight, how much food (wet and dry) has been consumed, any issues noticed (such as dry skin, losing spines), listening to their breathing and so on) and whether their faeces look normal. Although it’s in essence the same routine over and over, it never gets boring.
On HART’s Facebook page there was a timely reminder not to pick up leverets who might seem to have been abandoned and always to consult with a professional rescue in the first instance. It is quite natural for them to be left unattended for long periods of time.
It will not be so very long before intake numbers really start to ramp up as the ‘orphan season’ begins as spring unfolds. I am trying not to get too excited prematurely, but helping to look after once again all of those nestlings and fledglings, ducklings and goslings, is something I am hugely looking forward to.
The photographs of the fox, Barn Owl, Tawny Owl, hedgehog and seal, above, are taken, with permission, from HART’s Facebook page.
Leave a Reply