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Lovely summer weather continues with a slight welcome cooling for us.
River level continues to drop and no real sign of rain on the horizon, hardly enough for the Swans to float downstream.
The ducklings are having a favoured start to life and are now at varying stages of growth, from several days old to fully fledged and more to hatch yet.
The local feral pigeons are having the worst of all seasons, and I have now counted 15 dead over the past week. All of them seem to be dying from the same problem, and I suspect an E coli type illness, killing them within 18 hours of appearing listless.
One of the rock dove pals of mine, who has so far avoided this, has been injured with a neck wound. This has impacted his ability to swallow and eat. Fortunately I was able to catch him due to my close connection over time. Giving him some anti inflammatory meds, rehydration mixture, and a cold compress on his injured throat. He was enjoying the cold compress so much, at one point he fell asleep in my hands. Might get the Vet to check him out tomorrow.
Miserable weather since we released the ducklings last Thursday has finally cost the lives of 3 of the last eight that were released. The River has been continuously high and the ducklings did not get a chance to familiarise themselves with the currents, which are now fast flowing ever since the last flood changed the riverbed.
I am particularly vexed about the loss of the light coloured and weakest female that I helped hatch, she needed another few days to be able to fly out of danger.
The only bright spot today was the fact that the injured Rock dove that was caught by a cat, has made a full recovery and is flying around the house, it will be released tomorrow.
Thanks to trust member Elaine MacPhail for rescuing an injured rock dove today. Elaine was working near the town centre when a rock dove walked over to her, later followed by two cats! Elaine suspected it might have been attacked by the cats so brought it over to me. It had a bleeding chest injury which I cleaned up, and then gave it some antibiotic to combat any likely infection from a cat bite. It seems content to sit in a heated brooder box with plenty of food and water, recovering from a near fatal cat encounter.
