Newsletter 2010

We have had a very happy release of a female barn owl under licence. She came in as a small under weight and bleeding 3 to 4 week old chick, which had been abandoned by her parents. Much to our surprise she survived and thrived and when older enough was moved into an aviary with another young barn owl. They went through the winter well and in May both laid eggs.

We received a phone call from a gentleman in Devon asking if we had a female wild barn owl who was ready to go back to the wild as the female of the pair he kept an eye on had died. It was decided that Cyd should go down and be paired with the male in the hope that they would breed in the future. It was a long journey down to Devon but she had a few days rest in Gloucester at The Barn Owl Centre where she had a check up. We are pleased to say that all went well with the meeting and the owls now have their first clutch of babies.

A lot of the ducks had young this year it was lovely watching the ducklings grow. One mother duck also hatched a chicken egg which had been laid in her nest. The young chick is still very attached to her foster mother. But we shall always remember how the chick sat on mums back while all the young ducklings were learning to swim and then she would jump of mum’s back when everyone was on dry land again.

As well as this we have many other successes one to mention was a young buzzard that came in after bad weather had separated him from his parents, we feed him up and did a gentle release where we continued to feed him while he learnt to hunt. We watched as he tried hard to catch his prey and were over the moon to see he was successful. He stayed with us all through the winter coming each day at feed time to supplement his diet. Once there was plenty of food he was able to feed himself completely but we still see him about.

A really interesting rescue was of a little owl, two adult birds were brought in one was dead but the other was concussed. As it was breeding season we asked the couple to look around for a nest in case any young were still there This was found with 2 babies in it so we quickly return the little owl who was feeling better and arranged that the couple should supplement the feeding until the young fledge. This worked well and both fledged the nest and the adult full recovered his health.