A trapped fox, a poorly Swift, & three dehydrated hedgehogs

A poorly swift has come in from Claremont road Seaford.

Underweight for its age and dehydrated. He spent the night at home with a member of our care team who was able to give it fluids before being admitted to the centre the following day.

Our care team wear special cotton gloves when handling swifts.

This helps protect their feathers from damage. Each year swifts migrate to and from Africa and need pristine feathers. Swifts eat and sleep on the wing and when fledged they spend their first two years non stop flying until they have young of their own.

They are incredible little birds

Please be aware that gulls are in the process of fledging at the moment.

This means, like all other birds, they will spend time down on the ground building up the muscle strength in their wings before they can fly properly.

This means they could be down on the ground for a couple of days whilst they gain strength.

In the same way that humans wouldn’t want their children taken away from them if they were causing a nuisance to other people, it is not fair on the bird to be moved away from their parents just because they are an inconvenience to us humans. WRAS is unable to move or bring into care fledgling gulls which are in the safety of peoples gardens.

This means if you have a dog please take it out on a lead so it is under control.

You can place them up on your garage, shed or extension roof if you have one but it is likely they will come straight off again.

This is only a short term inconvenience so please be understanding and patient.

Rescuers Mitch and Daryl were devastated after rescuing a fox hanging by a back leg in Rose Walk Seaford.

They carefully secured the fox drove it back to WRAS’s Casualty Centre where I met them to provide emergency first aid. Assisted by Hannah and Katie we worked on cleaning up the wounds one by one.

It was clear the pressure necrosis was going to be extensive but we felt if the worse came to the worse and the leg was compromised it could be amputated.

Sadly though we then found that one of the front legs felt fractured.

I drove the fox to see our vet Mike who confirmed the leg and shoulder were both damaged beyond repair leaving us no option but to have the fox put to sleep.

The front leg appeared to be an old injury. Such a shame.

WRAS rescuers Chris and Karen attended a call to a lone hoglet out in the day near Ringmer.

On arrival Chris examined the youngster on site to check he was ok. Slightly dehydrated but seemingly well.

As they were about to leave Chris noticed a smell and both Chris and Karen knew the smell to be that of rotting tissue.

Cue Karen Chris and the callers taking apart a garage to find the smell.

After a good search the smell was sadly found.

A decomposed baby hog found behind some wood.

After clearing the rest of the wood amazingly Karen and Chris found mum and another baby. Concerned now due to one already gone, mum and the two hoglets were rushed into our hospital for a check over.

All three were quite dehydrated and poorly and will now remain in care.

A sad find, but at the same time a miracle that the single hoglet, with the help of some rescuers saved his mum and brother.

A team of WRAS Rescuers have challenged themselves to complete the Seaford South Coast 10km run on 3rd September 2017. Chris Riddington, Andrew Loftus, Brian Russell and I are raising money to help support WRAS’s Orphan team who have been working extremely hard throughout the summer and will continue to do so well into the Autumn. Many British wildlife will nest or give birth into the Autumn, hedgehogs have been known to given birth as late a December too.

Every year WRAS’s Orphan team deals with hundreds of young wildlife either sick, injured or orphaned.

For more information visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/wrassouthcoast10k