Working with wildlife!

This week I've decided to do a rather unusual placement by working at Weirfield Wildlife Hospital in Lincolnshire! Although it means getting up pretty early to drive 20 or so miles, I've found this week to be rather rewarding and I have particularly enjoyed working with a huge range of other volunteers who all share a similar passion for promoting animal welfare and who have also given up their spare time to help local wildlife rescue cases.

Primarily I have spent most of the week so far hand feeding baby hedgehogs that have been brought in by various members of the public and the RSPCA. The main reasons for these hedgehogs being brought to the hospital is due to them being found out in the daytime, often dehydrated and with no mother in sight, whilst hedgehogs are supposedly nocturnal. Every 2 hours, the hedgehogs have to be fed with a solution of milk for puppies (never feed hedgehogs cows milk due to the lactose in it which hedgehogs are not designed to deal with), with a syringe and a note is made of how much each hedgehog drinks.

Another main task of mine has been feeding the baby birds from pigeons to house martins which has helped to develop my knowledge in general about the wild birds in Britain and their different diets. The pigeons were fed with a solution of "goop" which contains a whole load of ingredients from meal worms to mashed corn, whilst the house martins were fed maggots as and when they would open their mouths.

It also wouldn't be work experience without a bit of hardcore cleaning! Cleaning out aviaries allowed me to see how the centre had equipped itself for the needs of many different species from foxes which I'd never seen up close before, to buzzards, kestrels, crows, squirrels, owls and falcons. The foxes in particular were a favourite of mine as they were fascinating to observe from a distance as they played together although they were naturally very shy!

From going on this placement I have a newly found understanding of British wildlife and the issues that currently affect it as well as a greater understanding of zoonotic diseases, the difficulties of hand rearing, and the balance between keeping the animals wild by minimal contact and trying to help them recover. Everyone there was really friendly and made the experience a really pleasurable one, it was also nice to do some work for a very deserving charity at the same time and I hope that sometime in the future I get the opportunity to go back and do further volunteer work.

Image of kestrel:  http://www.animalcorner.co.uk/britishwildlife/kestrel.html

Image of fox cub:http://www.jameswarwick.co.uk/do/ecco/view?listid=2&listcatid=44