Dennis Fenter's Web

Brent Lodge Wildlife Hospital

One night I received a phone call from our then local policeman to say he had picked up a tawny owl in the middle of the road, still alive but very woosy, probably having been hit by a car. Ten minutes later he turned up, empty handed, at my back door. "Where is it" I asked. " On the passenger seat under my helmet" he replied. He went out to bring it in and a few seconds later gave a piercing yell followed by words no policeman should utter in public. He had slid his hand under the helmet to pick up the bird. The bird now fully conscious attacked his fingers with it's talons, drawing much blood. I ended up detatching the Tawny from his hand and after a quick inspection releasing it into the night. The Owl, not his hand. Then I could render first aid to the real patient that night. An injured policeman!   Always ask for help before trying to help wildlife. One day a lady phoned in great distress for advice as to what to do with a seagull in distress on Bognor Beach. She informed me that she had picked it up and thrown it in to the sea several times as it did not seem able to get there on it's own. I advised her to bring it in to the hospital so we could investigate  and possibly treat it. This she did and on investigation the "Seagull" turned out to be a very wet White Pigeon. Moral....... Don't waste time trying to pigeons to swim. They won't co-operate. After  being dried, warmed and fed up for a week the bird recovered from the enforced swimming lesson and was happily released into  a the garden of  an aquaintance who had many white pigeons in his garden. It happily joined his flock.	Then there were the two "baby ducks" that a woman picked up from the pavement outside Barnham Station. When a helper brought them in they turned out to be a couple of young pigeon squabs that had fallen from their nests and were begging for food from every passer by. Moral.......Baby pigeons look as little like the adult birds they are to become as a ferret looks like a lion! These babies are the easiest to rear of any wild bird. They do not peck at food like other babies but put their heads inside mums mouth and suck food as she regurgitates it. We insert a tube into babies crop and squirt ready brek down it from a syringe until the crop fills up.	"You must be careful what you say to people on the phone". A Truism I tried hard to drum into any helpers at Brent Lodge. Yet I was caught out myself when a lady phoned up to say she had found a "Kestrel" covered in wet mud, floundering on the beach at Southbourne and unable to get back into the air. I asked if she could pick it up and bring it in. She replied that she could, so I advised her to wear a pair of gloves to pick it up, as a Kestrels talons are quite sharp and often dirty and can give a nasty small punture wound or scratch, and then to put it in a small shoe sized box and bring it in. She eventually turned up with a large case which was obviously quite heavy. On inspection her "Kestrel" turned out to be a fully adult, large, female Buzzard which was showing every sign of annoyance at it's enforced capture. However the finder had managed to pick it up with a small pair of gardening gloves without being injured severely, I shall never know. Moral....never trust someones description of a bird on the phone and be careful what advice you give Even apparantly immobile predators can cause severe damage to the untrained with their talons. Always use gloves, the heavier the better....or drop a towel over it ane pick it up wrapped in the material.
Then there was  the lady who phoned to tell me that she had the most delightful baby hawk in her garden but that it wasn't moving very much. When she brought it in it turned out to be a very dead adult Cuckoo. Moral. Never believe what you're told. Although cuckoos do have a slightly hawk like curved beak!   I shall never forget the time we were called to Butlins in Bognor Regis to "rescue" a supposedly oiled swan on a small island on their boating lake. We were given a small boat. and rowed out to the island where I put my wife ashore to pick up the bird. This she Did and then decided TO THROW IT TO ME. What happens when you throw birds in the air...?...they fly. So I received the full weight of a flying swan in the middle of my chest in a small boat in the middle of a boating pond. The result was predictable to all but my darling wife. Me flat on my back in the boat lying in six inches of water clutching a very idignant swan. Nothing was hurt but my pride and the swan was safely released elsewhere, the oil turned out to be a small muddy patch on it's chest. Moral ... Never play catch with a swan.		I was told, in all seriousness, in my early days of looking after wildlife, that it was easy to make a hedgehog uncurl to check it for fleas and ticks by dangling it upside down while holding it by it's tail. What tail? You try to get at a hedgehog's rear end when its curled up tightly into a ball. No actually....don't. I was also told that all injured wildlife knows you are trying to help it and will cooperate fully when you attempt to assist them. I have lost much blood and still have many scars obtained while proving this one is very much an urban myth. Another one is that hedgehogs have such small and blunt teeth that they cannot bite you and anyway they just roll up in a ball or run away. Try telling that to a mother hedgehog who is protecting her babies when you are cleaning out there bedding. The one I tried must have been sharpening her teeth on a file and she had a BIG mouth and drew enough blood to make me wary ever since.
		Add your content here

Enter content here