Monday, 19 October 2015

Curlew Casualty

Trust members and regular visitors from Fife, Alison and John Nicol brought me an unusual casualty today from Nairn beach - a Curlew. 




                   I decided to see if it could be saved and phoned our Avian adviser Sue for advice. After washing away all the sand on it's underside I was able to have a good look at the damage and discovered 2 badly broken legs. One of the legs had two compound fractures close to the foot and upper joint, and the other had a compound fracture again close to the upper joint. Although I have some medical kit for uncomplicated repairs, I reluctantly decided that the best option for the bird was to be put to sleep. This bird is a wader and needs two good legs to survive. Sadly the fractures were too severe for successful repair which was a great pity, for it had no wing injuries and was otherwise healthy. Last week I had a pigeon which also died, unfortunately dealing with wild bird casualties, it's a case of some you win some you lose !

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