Costa the Seagull - a story from the summer.

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.