If you compare these photo’s of Lucinda with those of the previous post, you’ll see that five days of intensive care and treatment has worked wonders….. And this evening Lucinda was taken back to her home territory to be released. The wonderful family who found her, came along to see her fly free. She is now fully fit and considerably plumper than when she first came to us……
EVEN IF SHE DOES LOOK A TAD INDIGNANT AT BEING HANDLED

The long dark nights of winter cause our wild animals even more of a problem when it comes to crossing our roads……. Every species suffer…… be that hedgehogs, deer, foxes or badgers but a perhaps surprising addition to road casualties is the Owl species… The longer nights mean they are out hunting earlier when the traffic flow is often at its rush hour peak…. In the last 24 hours two new owl patients have come in, both with head trauma and concussion from incidents with cars that probably never knew they had hit them…….
This is Lucinda, a Tawny Owl…. as you can see she looks in a bad way……… But her prognosis is pretty good now she is receiving care…… Minus her feathers she is perhaps 600 grams, against a car of perhaps a ton and doing 60mph,, bear those statistics in mind and in fact our Lucinda looks pretty good.

We at DWR were country born and bred so we have no axe to grind as ’soft townies’ but the mentality of some farmers and gamekeepers who still illegally take pot shots at Birds of Prey makes my blood boil.   All Birds of Prey are protected by law and yet here we are again with the slaughter inflicted by a shotgun that can NEVER do more than main a bird that hovers hundreds of feet in the air..

A wonderfully caring chap from a village west of Wareham called us out to attend an injured Buzzard…………… This superb bird was still alive, though mortally wounded by shotgun pellets…………..  There was nothing we could do for her but allow her end to be pain free and dignified…

The ‘hero’ with the shotgun had blown off her left leg and shattered her left wing……… Words fail me….. We will of course report it to the Police, but this once magnificent bird will be just another statistic, yet another number added to the huge total of illegally killed birds of prey every year.    Farmers, shooting estates and bumpkins with more lead shot than brains have so much to answer for… Buzzards live on road kill and rabbits…. something farmers claim is a pest, but Hey!!!! if it doesn’t earn money, every animal is a pest to most farmers… Guardians of our countryside my a – - -                      End of rant, sorry but cruel and pointless slaughter drives me mad….

This fine young lady is Gertrude, she fat, fit and healthy…….so why is she with us… Well sadly for her she is totally blind and unable to cope in the wild. Luckily for her she was found wandering across roads by a kind family who scooped her up and brought her to us. She obviously lost one eye a long time ago and had only very recently lost the use of the other. She will survive very well, but not in the wild. One of our supporters has offerred her a home in a protected garden so she can live a semi wild life, safe from predators, cars and humans but where she can find all that makes a hedgehogs life heaven. She will be cared for and fed in these luxury hoggie quarters for life.

This year has been another successful year for releasing orphaned fox cubs…..

We owe a huge debt of thanks to Dawn and Barry who do so much to ensure every cub has a fantastic start to their lives in the wild..

This June saw a record number of callouts for snakes. Despite the callers worries that these snakes were adders or all sorts of exotics, they all turned out to be harmless grass snakes. Most found themselves caught in pond netting or the netting used to protect fruit and veg from birds.

Finding a three foot snake in your garden can be a tad disconcerting if you’ve never seen one up close before, but unless you are a frog, grass snakes are no threat at all…

This weekend has seen all this years orphaned fox cubs move on to release pens…. They are now starting the last part of their release programme………Here they can complete their rehabilitation, already they are now semi wild and in just a few weeks they will be fully wild and ready to take on the world as healthy young adults…………..

Every year we take in orphaned fox cubs…The vast majority are orphaned as a direct result of Man’s actions, we seem unable to co-exist with any creatures, but foxes find ‘us’ a tough prospect in every respect………. We hunt their parents, we set snares and traps for them, we poison them, we shoot them, we dig up and destroy their earths and we kill thousands on our roads every year.  Between Feb and June, every dead adult means cubs left to go hungry…. some will survive with just one parent, as long as they are able to reach a couple of months in age. Many will not….they will simply starve to death…….. These are a few of the lucky ones……

Maeve and Maisie

Magda at five weeks old

Maisie at five weeks old

This stunningly beautiful creature is ‘Cerridwen’  Very sadly she was orphaned at only five weeks old.

Otters have young at any time of the year, but this very cold snap must have made parenting especially tough. Quite what happened to mum is a mystery, but this beautiful young lady was truly fortunate to have been found by a very caring man who did everything just right. Before jumping in and rescuing her, he phoned for advice, and then expertly caught her and get her warm until our wonderful rescuers, Helen and Andy could get there to pick her up.   She is doing well and her future looks bright, she is being bottle fed 5 times a day and will eventually be released back into the wild. Otter cubs can spend 12 or 18 months with mum, learning all there is know about being an otter, and so she will be a very welcome guest for sometime……….

As a footnote…… We are extremely grateful to Darren Butterworth of Trafalgar Fisheries of Fordingbridge who has donated free of charge, enough small trout to feed Cerridwen for many weeks once she’s weaned. As a volunteer organisation with very limited funds, his generosity is greatly appreciated…Many thanks Darren………

(The photo’s Sandi and I took of Cerridwen were distinctly rubbish, and so we are extremely grateful for these superb photographs taken by Sally Adams of the Bournemouth Echo)

GREAT NEWS   The Wonderful Schelmish (probably the World’s very best Medieval Rock Band) are to play at a fundraising evening for us on    Feb 28th 2009 at 8pm

The Hamworthy Club, Magna Road, Poole.

Tickets are very limited…. if you’d love a great night out and raise money for DWR please snap your tickets up asap……..

Tickets are £12 and available from us…..    

Send a cheque made payable to S. G. Eaton,  to 

Dorset Wildlife Rescue, 25, Goldfinch Rd, Poole, Dorset, BH17 7TA