Sometimes, birds come in to our Hospital with such a back story, that we have to publish it.
Wurzel was brought in by a local farmer, who saw her get spat out the chute of the combine harvester! Fortunately, the blades weren’t operating at the time, but how she found herself inside the machinery, we have no idea!
Buzzards will often spend time on the ground “grubbing”, which is hunting for worms and other insects. With the relatively mild weather (up until last week) this has been perfect for species which feed on insects, and at certain times of year, insects can make up a large proportion of a Buzzards diet.
However, combine harvesters aren’t known for being particularly speedy, and Buzzards are usually quite quick to get out of the way of large, noisy, scary machinery bearing down on them.
We think that Wurzel may have been in the field grubbing because of another issues, which meant she was unable to get out of the way of the combine before she got caught up. Upon admission, she was showing a tilt to her head, which we think may be a neck injury sustained in the accident. She was in reasonable body weight, but had an interesting lesion in her mouth. Initially, this was thought to be frounce, a yeast infection which causes swelling to the throat and tongue, making it painful for the bird to eat. However, following a visit from our vet Dr Elliott Simpson, it was discovered to be an……. infection. Elliott removed some of the infected tissue to send for analysis and prescribed antibiotics to hopefully clear it up.
We are unsure on the long-term prognosis on this bird, as she still has a pronounced tilt, which we hope will improve given time and rest.
