TREVOR WEEKS: Volunteer is rowing solo to Antigua for our charity

This week has seen one of our volunteers set off on an amazing journey meaning he will be away from his family for the next 90 days!
Daryl's Atlantic Row for WRAS SUS-161214-090933001Daryl's Atlantic Row for WRAS SUS-161214-090933001
Daryl's Atlantic Row for WRAS SUS-161214-090933001

Daryl Farmer, one of our volunteer rescuers, is now at sea rowing solo over 3,000 miles from La Gomera to Antigua. He is one of 12 boats undertaking the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge and he will be one of only four soloists!

With no engine and no sails Daryl will have to row every inch of the journey in his Pure Class traditional style ocean rowing boat, expecting to undertake approximately 1.5 million oar strokes to complete the journey.

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More people have been into space and successfully climbed Everest than rowed across the Atlantic. I take my hat off to Daryl, I think this is the riskiest, furthest and most challenging and demanding fundraising anyone has ever done to help support our charity.

This makes me feel so humble and privileged to have been chosen when there are so many other causes out there. The wildlife of Sussex will certainly be grateful for his mammoth challenge, for which we hope will see WRAS able to replace one of its aging ambulances. Anyone wanting to sponsor Daryl can do so via his just giving page https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/atlanticsolo2016 wants to raise as much money as possible to help WRAS replace one of their aging ambulances.

If you want to follow Daryl and the race progress you can do so at https://www.taliskerwhiskyatlanticchallenge.com/
race-tracker/

We are gearing up for Christmas, and ordered in loads of cat food, various seed mixes, gloves, bin bags, cleaning materials for all our volunteers who will be working hard over Christmas and New Year period, as we will be open as normal right over Christmas, but just with a skeleton crew based at the centre to ensure rescues and casualties are looked after properly.

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This will be my first Christmas Day off in about six years and Chris is very kindly covering. We will stock up on festive treats for the volunteers who to help out too.

A poor starling has come into care this week covered in oil and soot. WRAS care team Chris Riddington and Katie Nunn Nash have bathed him and washed most of it off.

They then have had to rinse his eyes thoroughly due to the amount of grease in them with an optic rinse. The team then dry him thoroughly and then gave him fluids to clear his throat as he warms up.

This week has been a pigeon week.

We had an old lad rescued in Lilac Close, Willingdon, by rescuers Chris and Laura. He had been grounded for seven days and climbed onto the window ledge each night to avoid the local fox.

He’s a bit underweight. A very handsome pigeon.

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Rescuer Wren Henderson has also attended the disused Co-op in Newhaven, as unfortunately, Seahaven Bird Rescue is still unable to attend rescues due to injury/illness - and we wish them a speedy recovery as there are too few organisations doing this work. WRAS Rescuer Tony Neads also attended to help catch the pigeon flying around inside the disused store. The bird is in good condition and after some rest will be released again.

A poorly feral pigeon has been rescued after being found by staff from the South Coast Ambulance Service outside the Polegate Ambulance Make Ready Centre, which was also collected by WRAS rescuer Wren and is now in care.

Four more pigeons have been released. Two feral pigeons which were originally rescued due to head trauma. One was found Uckfield Town Centre and the other from Polegate.

So far the Co-op Community Fund has raised over £2122.26 for East Sussex WRAS!

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We are one of their chosen charities for the Eastbourne stores until April 8, 2017. So if you shop in one of the Eastbourne Co-op stores ensure you have your Co-op membership card and chose East Sussex WRAS as your chosen charity and we get a donation when you shop in store and also from the 5p bag scheme.

We are still working hard to rehabilitate our injured road casualty buzzard from Battle, although we now only have the one buzzard in care as the one from the A22 Uckfield By-pass was released on Sunday fit and well.

Our badger from the old railway cutting in Lewes is still in care. X-rays have showed nothing unusual, and we are waiting on blood test results at the moment.

On the hedgehog front , this mild weather is being very helpful and allowing us to get some of the larger hedgehogs out for release again, keeping our numbers around the 100 mark still. But as quickly as they go out more come in again.

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