Burnham-On-Sea wildlife carers have released a buzzard back into the wild this week after giving it treatment for several injuries.
Secret World Widlife Centre in East Huntspill helped the Buzzard, pictured here, which was admitted on 17th December after being spotted being unable to fly and also severely underweight.
Secret World’s Charlotte Wroe says: “We rescued 18 buzzards in 2020, this was about half the number that we would rescue in a normal year.”
“We are not sure why we saw less; it was very strange as normally there would be at least one on site all year round.”
“Maybe the lockdown meant that casualties were not seen. We did rescue and rear a juvenile Buzzard, named Buzzbee, in the Summer of 2020 which was here for around two months before being soft released.”
“This means that a temporary aviary is erected at the release site and the buzzard was contained for a couple weeks to get use to its surroundings.”
“Eventually a hatch is opened allowing the bird to fly out, but food is continued supplied in the aviary until the bird no longer comes back, showing they are catching their own food.”
A further Buzzard, pictured here, was admitted on 17th December, who was unable to fly and was also severely underweight.
“She didn’t have any broken bones but had a swollen shoulder. She received pain relief, good food and gladly took the opportunity to rest,” she adds.
“She had a lot of fun in her indoor flight aviary, building her muscles back up. This takes time as does steady weight gain. She was able to go back home on the 3rd of January.”
“We had another Buzzard bought to us on Christmas Day, this one was suffering with head trauma and sadly deteriorated over a couple of days so had to be euthanized.”
“Since then, we have had two more come to us, both were found grounded in the Bridgwater area. The first one had some strange burns on its feet and a damaged wing, he was found under power lines, so we suspect he flew into them and came down.”
“The second came to us on the 3rd of January because it was grounded and was found with poor body condition. This one will have good nutritious food and will again build its muscles up and hopefully get his second chance in the wild as well.”
