Got a call to say a seagull had been seen
distressed and crying for its mum all day in Hereford Hightown, outside Costa
Coffee, in the searing heat. My
friend, Amy, who was at the scene, caught the seagull using my advised technique
of throwing a towel over the bird and brought her to me. I fed her a mushy meal of brown bread and raw
egg. Sat on my lap wrapped in a towel.
Happy Seagull. It was so, so hot.
We were about to go to Devon so that I could show my children where I have been working on BBC2's 'The
Burrowers' With Chris Packham. Don't
have any voluntary backup from my wildlife rehabilitation work, so the only thing for it was to take the
young seagull with me on my travels. Luckily Linda at the Frankaborough farm
B&B is the warmest and most flexible host you could imagine. She let the
Seagull stay. Needed feeding every few hours, fish, meat, bread, egg, so we
took her with us everywhere we went.
Tintagel, Dartmoor, cafe, beach, restaurant. Couldn't leave seagull in the car because it was too hot. Projectile
poo stretched the tolerance of some of the friends I visited. Lots of cleaning
up, hot water and disinfectant. We made
it home and She gained strength and grew and grew. But she didn't fly. Despite
being in a barn big enough. Had her checked over by the vet. All ok. Thought
maybe she needed a bit of inspiration.
So I took seagull to Tinkers Hill Bird of prey rescue. There were 18
other seagulls waiting to be released back to the sea. She would join them and
in a week or two so with flying nimbly up to the perch. She flew off the Gower Peninsula back into the wild with her friends. Rescue successful.
