Female Snowy Owl making a fuss about her eye drops

This month we have treated fifteen birds; four from the Trust and the rest were wild birds brought in by an RSPCA officer or members of the public.

young Gymnogene

The Trust birds included a female Snowy Owl with an eye infection. She is receiving regular eye drops which she makes a noisy fuss about. She is recovering well.

One of our juvenile Gymogenes (also known as East African Harrier Hawk) came in for care as he was found to have a general infection and was “off colour”. He received medication and recovered well.

Vuitton, the Northern Hawk Owl made a short visit to us as he was not feeding properly and consequently was loosing weight. He is now OK and back in his aviary. Also Dill, a Harris Hawk called in to see us for observation and is now back home.

Juvenile Barn Owl

Buzzard about to be released

...and off it goes

It has not been a good month for the survival of the wild bird patients. 7 of the birds either died or had to be euthanased because of the severity of their injuries. These included a Tawny Owl, a Barn Owl, 2 Sparrow Hawks, a Little Owl and 2 Buzzards.

A young Barn Owl was found by a walker. It was checked out in our hospital, found to be OK and was returned to the original nest site. The Barn Owl previously reported which had the spinal injury is still recovering and enjoys the space in one of our bigger bays, now with three perches including a high one. He will be going into an outside aviary soon, once his regular physio is complete, to see how he gets on in the even bigger world. A juvenile Barn Owl was found by a river in a very wet and poor condition. It is estimated that she is only about 7 weeks old as she still has quite a lot of fluffy downy feathering. She is now doing well but will continue with us until she is mature enough to go back into the wild. We are treating a Tawny Owl brought in from Hampshire following a traffic accident. He also is recovering well.

One of the best things I do as part of my work as a volunteer in the hospital is the release of wild birds once they are fully back to health. I have recently released a young Tawny Owl and a Buzzard. Usually when I open the carry box they fly off very quickly, glad (I hope) to be back in the great outdoors, and photos are not easy to get. But this month the Buzzard was photographed.