Brent Lodge Wildlife Hospital NEWSLETTER ISSUE No 89 Winter 2011

Newsletter Issue Number 89 Winter 2011

BRENT LODGE BIRD AND WILDLIFE TRUST COW LANE, SIDLESHAM, CHICHESTER, WEST SUSSEX, PO20 7LN

(Affiliated to the Jean Sainsbury Animal Welfare Trust)

Registered Charity Number 276179

Phone: 01243-641672 Email: brentlodge@btinternet.com

Patrons The Duchess of Richmond and Gordon Lady Sarah Clutton Ms Olga White

Trustees

Graham Cole Yvonne Fenter Philip Mortimer David Roberts

Vice Presidents Alexandra Bastedo Phil Collins LVO Sir Patrick Moore Chris Packham Alan Titchmarsh MBE, VMH John Virgo John Whitaker BVMS, MRCVS

Founder: Dennis W. Fenter MBE

Administrator: Paulette Hackett Web support: Chris Kingston

Veterinary Surgeon

Richard Edwards MSc MA VetMB MRCVS, AlphaPet Veterinary Clinics 11-17 The Precinct, West Meads, Bognor Regis, PO21 5SB

Phone : 01243-842832 Web site : www.alphapet.co.uk

Brent Lodge Charity Shops 7 & 8 New Parade, Selsey 01243-605125

Wittering Walk, East Wittering 01243-673426

Printed by: Selsey Printing & Publishing, 115 High Street, Selsey, PO20 0PZ

Cover photograph: Fledgling Swallow by Richard Edwards Other photographs: Dennis Fenter. Chris Kingston, Emma Pink, Michael Turner

Don’t forget you can keep up-to-date with what’s going on at Brent Lodge on a daily basis by becoming a fan of our

Facebook page at www.facebook.com/brent.lodge.wildlife or by following @brentlodge on Twitter

- and remember our web site at www.brentlodge.org

HOSPITAL DIARY Well, after another extremely busy summer season, we are gearing up for another busy hedgehog season. This summer brought us a HUGE number of injured and orphaned baby birds and animals. With just 3 members of staff this has been no easy task but we are really proud to say that despite taking in more ‘babies’ than last year, we coped well thanks to a band of extremely dedicated volunteers. We really couldn’t do it without them. Just to give you an idea of the average day in the summer, our smaller baby birds (Robins, Sparrows, and Blue-tits etc) need to be hand fed at least every 10 minutes. Our larger baby birds (Blackbirds, Starlings, and Thrushes etc) need to be fed at least every 20-25 minutes. Our very young mammals need to be fed every hour until they get a bit bigger when it is spread out to every 2 hours. Our baby birds of prey are also every hour until they become a bit bigger and can have their feeds spread out to every 2 hours. On top of this we have to clean all of the cages, answer the never-ending phone calls and take in up to 40 new patients every day! However, despite all of this, the summer still remains to be my favourite time of the year! It is lovely to see all of the little babies grow up and go from depending on us to becoming independent and more importantly, wild! Throughout the summer we had a large number of phone calls from people who were concerned about the dramatic decrease in birds in their garden this year. There are obviously a number of reasons for this including the dramatic changes in the weather (the poor birds don’t know if they are coming or going) and of course predators such as cats but we have also been talking to the RSPB and there would seem to be an outbreak of a disease called Trichomonosis. It normally affects

Pigeons and Collared Doves but it would now seem that it is affecting Greenfinches, Chaffinches and other finches. The disease basically blocks the birds’ throat resulting in the bird dying from starvation as it cannot eat. Affected birds will often be lethargic, look ‘puffed up’ and can you can sometimes see a swelling to its throat as well as wet/matted patches around the beak. You may also be able to see uneaten food in and around the beak and the birds breathing may become shallow or laboured. The disease is generally passed on by birds regurgitating food during the breeding season and when they feed their young. It is also easily passed on through contaminated water (in bird baths etc) and from seed the bird may have tried to pick up/eat and then dropped. If this all sounds familiar, the RSPB are strongly advising that you temporarily stop feeding your garden birds and leave all sources of water (bird baths etc) dry until sick or dead birds are no longer found in the garden. This will help to prevent any further spread of the disease by discouraging groups of birds from congregating in your garden. You should also clean all of your garden feeders / bird tables / bird baths on a regular basis to try and prevent and spread of any other diseases. The RSPB are asking anyone who suspects a case of Trichomonosis in their garden to report it to them so they can start to build a picture of how widely spread the diseases is and how intense it is in certain areas. To report it go to the RSPB website (www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/health/sickbirds/greenfinches.aspx) and click on the link called ‘Garden bird disease recording form’.

On a happier note... we successfully reared, rehabilitated and released a huge number of garden birds, waterfowl, corvids, sea birds, birds of prey, large mammals and small mammals this year which is great. The staff here at Brent Lodge are so privileged to have such a rewarding job. There are definitely days when our job is a challenge and heartbreaking but thankfully these days are hugely outnumbered by the good, happy and successful days. We all work tirelessly (often

into the early hours of the morning in the summer) to care for, rehabilitate and release the animals in our care to the very best of our ability alongside a very dedicated veterinary team. Unfortunately some very tough decisions sometimes have to be made along the way to end an animal’s suffering but please rest assured, the staff here are incredibly passionate and will ALWAYS do our very best for all of the animals and birds in our care. We are one of the very few wildlife hospitals which provide a 24hr a day, 365 days a year service. Although we are officially open 9am until 5pm, we know more than anyone that working with animals is not a 9 till 5 job.

This is why you can always reach one of us on the phone, no matter what time. Our answer machine is switched on at 5pm but it gives out an emergency number so you can reach us for advice and guidance. As I write this we are already getting quite a number of ‘autumn juvenile ‘hedgehogs. At this time of year there are a lot of little hedgehogs who were born too late in the season who start to struggle with the cold conditions. Food is less available to them and of course, they get cold,

bless them. This is where we come in. We are here to help all of those little guys get through the winter. If they were to stay in the wild and go into hibernation, they would almost certainly die as they would not have the body-weight to survive the winter. If you see a hedgehog in your garden that is under 600g it will need to come into a wildlife hospital like us to be ‘over-wintered’. Once again we will probably need help from you to ‘over-winter’ our hedgehogs because we really want to help as many needy hoglets as we can! We do have a waiting list from last year but if you would like to be added to that list please pop into Brent Lodge one afternoon and ask for Emma, I can then show you what will be involved and give you some literature about the ‘over-wintering’ process. As always, I would just like to remind you that if you ever see a hedgehog out during the daytime, it has a problem and needs to come into a place like us ... hedgehogs should never be out during the daytime! Over the next few months I’m sure we will continue to see many more autumn juvenile hedgehogs who need our help but hopefully with a little help from our ‘over-winterers’ we will be able to slow down a bit and get the hospital cleaned and geared up for the spring again.... its never ending here!! Because of this we are always screaming out for volunteers to come in and help us care for the animals in the hospital. Do you think you would be able to help us with this? We are also always on the lookout for people to transport some of our patients to and from local vets, people to drive our van to pick up donated

items, people to help us out with the increasing number of fundraising events we are doing and people to help us out in our charity shops. If you think you could help us out with any of these please phone us. We really appreciate all of the help we get! For those of you who are on Facebook, you may have noticed Brent Lodge are now on Facebook too! There is a lot of bad press about Facebook but we have found it to be a very helpful tool in the running of the hospital. Not only are we able to give regular updates about the running of the hospital (patients we have coming in and events we have coming up etc) but it has also proved very useful when we have been running low on cat food or washing powder. A little while ago we had nearly completely run out of cat/dog food for our hedgehogs, but after posting a plea on Facebook, we had people coming in with cat/dog food to top up our stocks! So if you are on Facebook and have not ‘added’ us yet please search ‘Brent Lodge Wildlife Trust’ and ‘follow’ us for regular updates and photos. (Or you can find us at www.facebook.com/brent.lodge.wildlife) As mentioned above we have been running the hospital on just 3 members of staff over the past year and a half. Darren (Daz), Jo and I, have taken on the running of the hospital to try and keep costs down during this difficult financial period. Jo has now made the decision to take a slight career change and train in childcare (like I said, only a slight change). She will still continue her work here on a part time basis (so I can still have my days off) until the person due to ‘replace’ her arrives. I would just like to take this opportunity to say a MASSIVE thank you to Jo for genuine dedication to the job. Jo had been a complete pleasure to work with and we will all be very sad to see her go .We wish her all the luck in the world for her future career, any children being taught/cared for by her will be very lucky indeed! However, I’m sure this is not the last we will see of Jo. Finally I would just like to say a HUGE thank you to our incredible team of volunteers who come in to help us on a daily basis; we really could not do it without you! Thank you to the people who continue to support us and the work we do, again, it is greatly appreciated! Thank you to AlphaPet and their team who continue to support Brent Lodge and the animals who desperately need our care and attention. Thank you to all of you who come to support us at our events throughout the year, the money we raise at these events is vital to the on-going running of the hospital and thank you to all of you who support us through Facebook!! Everyone at Brent Lodge wishes you a very merry Christmas and a fabulous new year! Emma Pink

BRENT LODGE CALENDAR

Our Brent Lodge 2012 Calendar is now available, and makes an affordable gift that anyone would love, or a treat for yourself! This A4 sized wall calendar (opens to A3) features stunning photographs of Brent Lodge patients. Priced at only £4.95, this high quality calendar is available from our shops, at Brent Lodge, from our eBay shop (link from our web site) or by mail order using the form in this newsletter.

“The Lookout” by Dennis Fenter

Help Brent Lodge by buying our unique Christmas Cards.

The cards measure approx 10.5cm x 14.5cm (4” x 5½”), in packs of 10 for £3.50. All of our Christmas cards include the Brent Lodge logo on the back, and “With Christmas Greetings and Best Wishes For the New Year” inside.

“Christmas Goose” by Alan Titchmarsh

CHRISTMAS CARDS

“Blue Tit” by Richard Edwards

Another gift idea is the “Happy BirdDay” booklet produced by Brent Lodge supporter Margaret Birch, consisting of a series of 14 black and white illustrations by artist Mark Dean, on a theme of “A happy birdday is …”. At £2.50, the A5-sized booklet is a great alternative to a birthday card, or a bargain stocking-filler!

GIFT SPONSORSHIPS

If you’re stuck for gift ideas, how about Sponsoring one of our patients or long-term resident owls for a year as a gift? We will send you a pack containing a personalized certificate and a photo of the resident/type of patient, information about it, a “Welcome to Brent Lodge” booklet, car sticker, and newsletter, all contained within a transparent plastic wallet. The recipient will also receive our newsletters for the next year. If you wish, we can gift-wrap the pack and post it directly to the recipient. Sponsorships cost from £10 to £25, and as well as solving your gift problems, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are helping to provide for the stay of a patient or long-term resident bird at Brent Lodge. I would like to buy a Gift Sponsorship to support the following type of patient :- A Swan £25 A Duck £15 An Owl £20 A Hedgehog £10 Any other bird (name species) £10

Please give the adopted patient the name of ___________________________

- or -

I would like to support a long-term resident owl (all at £20) :- Bracken (a female Eagle Owl) Patch (a Tawny Owl) Ghost (a Barn Owl) Pip (a Tawny Owl) Lyle (a Snowy Owl) Oscar (a Tawny Owl) Please make sure you include your own details on the form overleaf, so we can

include your name in the recipient’s pack, and phone you in case of query. Please provide the name & address of the recipient, so that we can put their name in their welcome pack, and ensure that they receive future newsletters:- Name: _____________________________________________________________ Address____________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Postcode: ________

Please tick this box if you would like us to gift wrap the pack and post it directly to the recipient. We will include your name in the pack. If you also want us to include a message on a gift tag, please write it here:-

Please use this form for Memberships, Donations, & Purchases

Name : _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Address : _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Postcode : _ _ _ __ _ _ Phone : _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _

Please make cheques payable to “Brent Lodge Bird & Wildlife Trust”, and return this form and payment to: Brent Lodge Wildlife Hospital,

Cow Lane, Sidlesham, Chichester, PO20 7LN

Please send me the following Calendars and/or Cards:-

I enclose payment for Gift Sponsorship(s) (Please specify overleaf) £ _ _ _ _

I would like to become a Member / renew my Membership (please tick type): � Life Membership £65.00 (Senior Citizen £50) � Full Membership £7.50 per year (Senior Citizen £5.00) � Family Membership £10.00 per year � The Mallards (11-18 year olds, & special needs) £5.00 per year � Muckyducks Club (0-10 year olds) £3.50 per year � Corporate Membership £100.00 per year £_ _ _ _ _ I would like to make a General Donation towards running costs £ _ _ _ _ _ Please send me information about Gift Aid / Standing Orders / Legacies.

Please tick this box if you do NOT

want us to send an acknowledgement for donation / membership renewal.

In total, I enclose a cheque for £ _ _ _ _ _ _

Item Price each Quantity Total Brent Lodge 2012 Calendar £4.95

Cards : “Christmas Goose” £3.50

Cards : “Blue Tit” £3.50

Cards : “The Lookout” £3.50

“Happy BirdDay” booklet £2.50

Please add £1 for postage & pack-ing (however many ordered) £1.00 - £1.00

Total for Merchandise

DIARY DATE

Make a note – our

2012 Spring Fayre

will be on

5th & 6th May

We hope you like the fact that we have produced this newsletter in colour.

However, it costs more to do that, which is why this issue is so short, so …. do you own or work for a business that would like to contribute to our

newsletter printing costs in exchange for advertising space in it.?

If anyone can help in that way, we would be able to produce future newsletters in colour, and with more pages of news. If you are interested

in finding out more, please email brentlodge@btinternet.com

It costs us over £20 an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to run Brent Lodge.

If you would like to help us to continue to help wildlife, and can spare a few pounds, please consider making an extra donation

using the form opposite. Thank you.

Would you prefer to receive your Brent Lodge newsletters in electronic format, rather than paper?

Using a secure service called MailChimp, you can sign up to automatically

receive an email notification whenever we publish a Brent Lodge Wildlife Hospital newsletter (usually 3 times a year).

The notification email that you receive will include a link to our web site

so that you can download a pdf version of the newsletter. If you currently receive printed paper newsletters from us by traditional mail,

and you subscribe for email notifications instead, then we will not send you further paper copies unless you tell us otherwise.

So you will get your newsletter faster than if we send it to you by

snail-mail, it saves paper, and it saves us paying postage. To sign up, go to http://tinyurl.com/blenews

40th ANNIVERSARY

Thank you to everyone who came along to Brent Lodge for our 40th Anniversary weekend in June. It was really great to see so many of our supporters. A huge thanks to Emma, Jo and Danny, who worked so hard to organise the event, and to all the others who helped at the weekend. Our intention was to give our visitors an insight into what goes on behind the scenes at Brent Lodge. We allowed groups of visitors inside the hospital, and our on-site shop/tea room was converted into an information centre for the weekend. Our founder Dennis Fenter managed to talk himself hoarse chatting to so many friends old and new! Everyone who attended the event was full of praise for the work done at Brent Lodge. Like all charities in these tough financial times, Brent Lodge is now really struggling to survive …. so let’s all hope that, with your help, we can keep funds coming in so that we will still be here in ten years time to celebrate our 50th Anniversary!

Brent Lodge Vice-President

Alan Titchmarsh unfortunately

couldn’t attend the anniversary event, but he did manage to meet

up with staff members Jo,

Emma & Darren, and Oscar the

Owl, a few days later to wish

Brent Lodge a happy 40th

anniversary.

WHAT’S GOING ON OUTSIDE

We are 2 weeks from finishing our large mammal stable and run. The first patient to go into this area will be a deer we had brought to us from a new housing development in Chichester. The small fawn was being chased by children, and our good friends Jane and Simon from Badger Trust Sussex went to rescue her and then brought her to us. She settled down and after a few days she started eating well, and soon she will go into the new stable area until next spring when all the leaves are back on the trees and new growth is available for her to eat. This will give her a greater chance in the wild than if she was released now. I would like to thank the teams of helpers from The Body Shop who recently helped clear the area for phase 2 of the mammal enclosures. They cut back trees and shrubs, and tidied up other parts of site, as well as painting the inside and outside of the raptor block. I would like to thank them for all their hard work, and hope they may come back to help some more in the future. At Brent Lodge we are relying more on volunteers than ever, as we have cut back on staff and without volunteers we could not carry on helping the wildlife brought to us. We are in need of people to help in the hospital regularly with routine cleaning and feeding, and other jobs such as shredding newspaper, weighing hedgehogs, and set-ting up cages for incoming patients. We also need help with the outside cleaning, which is sometimes a very dirty job, especially in the winter. Mornings are our busi-est time of day, with all the patients needing to be cleaned and fed, and this normally takes us till lunch time. Then in the afternoons we catch up on existing animals and new ones, medications are given to those who need it, and we catch up on washing and drying towels (which we use loads of every day).

The most rewarding part of being a part of the Brent Lodge team is seeing patients get better and being able to release them when they’re fit and ready. So if any of you have any spare time to help us, please phone Brent Lodge (in the afternoon if possible as we are so busy in the morning) and we can arrange to show you round and give you all the info you need. The Barn furniture and bric-brac sales on Saturdays are picking up slowly. We are always in need of good quality furniture. We have lots of sofas at the moment, but most of our customers are after wooden furniture. If you have any unwanted book-shelves, wardrobes, tables, or sideboards, we would be very grateful to have them. We can collect but we do appreciate anyone who can bring items in to us as it saves diesel. Please remember if you are looking for furniture come to us first. I would like to thank all our team of helpers for all that they do, including cleaning, helping with maintenance, driving, fundraising, and helping in our shops.

Darren “Daz” Ashcroft

VULCAN

We were all saddened recently by the sudden death in the summer of Vulcan, one of our resident Eagle Owls. Vulcan was spotted by an elderly owl lover in a London pet shop in 1979, being advertised as “an ideal family pet”. This was certainly not the case! The lady who saw him was horrified, and she rapidly press-ganged her work colleagues to contribute enough money to buy him. She then brought him to us so that he could live in a large aviary instead of being confined to a small cage for the rest of his life. As a foreign bird, he could not be released to the wild, so for the last 32 years Vulcan

lived happily in one of our largest aviaries, which we hope was the next best thing. Having been with Brent Lodge for over three-quarters of our existence, he was a bird known and loved by all of our staff, volunteers, and visitors. The staff at Brent Lodge have set up a small planted tribute to him near his old aviary. He is very much missed by all of us.

BRENT LODGE

CHRISTMAS FAYRE

19th & 20th November

From 10.00am to 4.00pm Admission one tin of cat or dog food

Xmas Cards, Gifts, Decorations Bric-a-brac, Collectables & Jewellery

Art & Crafts Plants Pre-owned Books, Toys, Games, CDs, DVDs

Bird Feeders, Food & Boxes Wildlife Information & Advice

Massive Tombola & Raffle Home-made Cakes, Snacks & Refreshments

And lots more !

Please follow signs to car park from Keynor Lane. Sorry—NO DOGS allowed on site.

Do you shop at the Co-Op in East Wittering? If so, for the next year you can raise much-needed funds for Brent Lodge, at no extra cost to yourself. Just ask at the checkout for one of their Community Support Cards, and show it every time you shop there during the next 12 months. For all spend made by people who show these cards, the Co-Op will make a donation at the end of the 12 month period, to be split between Brent Lodge and Manhood Mobility.