TREVOR WEEKS: It's been a week for bat rescues

We hope he will be a quite turn around and back out again.

Its been a week for bat rescues too. Rescuer Chris rushed out to Laughton to a collect a baby grey long eared bat which had been found on the ground in a woodland at Upper Dicker.

The baby bat was cold and lethargic and flies had started laying eggs on its body.

The very unusual bat was warmed up and rushed to the amazing Jenny Clark at the Sussex Bat Hospital.

Thank you to Claverham Manor near Berwick who called us out to two baby bats this week.

One of them was healthy and I was able to pop him up through a gap in the ceiling back to the roost.

The second youngster was quite underweight so after speaking to Jenny I drive him up for her to take on.

There have sadly been a few bat deaths this week including one from Newick and one from Isfield both suffering from badly fractured wings which were too bad to be fixed.

Please take care out there when driving at night.

We’re had two calls on Monday night about road casualty foxes.

Sadly both have passed away.

Foxes are starting to explore away from their mums and are crossing roads and chasing each other into areas they are not always familiar with.

They wont always know the roads and danger areas do please slow down and keep your eyes open.

We are also getting a lot of road casualty gulls at the moment.

As the young gulls are now fledging and flying for the first time, they are not flying with full control and as a result often have accidents.

We have had another gull found on the beach caught up in fishing hooks.

This time it was on the beach at Pevensey Bay.

The poor gull had a three hooks caught in its wings and one of which was also caught on its foot so it couldn’t walk.

WRAS volunteer Jane Osborne collected the bird and delivered it to our Casualty Centre where the hooks were cut and the bird is now recovering.

We have a few volunteer shifts which we need help with.

We have weekday and weekend feed and clean, rescuer and orphan shifts to fill.

Our volunteers make a huge difference to our work. They are critical part of our team and without them we cannot do what we do.

Please join the team and meet some new people and help make a difference. Please contact Chris via his e-mail [email protected]

Sunday morning and evening turned out to be a busy one.

Due to holiday and sickness our volunteers and care team were busy feeding and cleaning everyone, whilst trying to take calls and admit casualties.

Rescuer Murrae was non-stop dealing with calls in Eastbourne, Lewes and Stone Cross and off duty rescuer, Tony also helped with an urgent pigeon in Eastbourne.

Chris dealt with a gull in Polegate that went back on the roof.

Chris learnt a valuable lesson that when holding a gull above your head to get them on the roof don’t look up!

Chris and Hannah dealt with a gull on the A22 but on arrival a unit from Sussex Police had already moved the bird who had sadly passed away.

Sunday evening turned out to just as busy with rescuers rushing to an injured bat and injured gull in Peacehaven, a wood pigeon trapped in a chimney in Haywards Heath, a gull with a broken wing at the Grand Hotel Eastbourne, a fox with nasty maggot infested wounds round his head and neck near Sovereign Leisure Centre, an injured dunnock at Polegate, a young hedgehog at Cooksbridge with a flystrike wound, possible gardening injury; a catted sparrow from Uckfield and a baby deer running round a garden in Burwash.

We have had two more baby hedgehogs in this week.

Weighing just 36.7 and 30.5 grams, they were found outside a hedgehog house with no mum and a dead sibling in the house.

Rescuers Kai and Fiona picked them up from Hampden Park and rushed them to orphan rearer Katie back at our Casualty Centre.

Our group of five tawny owl chicks are now fully feathered and this week been released back to the wild.

I can’t believe the change in them, from little white fluffy things to amazingly stunning adult looking tawny owls.