A couple of weeks ago, Jess arranged for Dr Hugh Hanmer to pay us a visit to ring some more of our Hospital patients who were almost ready for release.
A healthy wild bird would not be calm enough to approach or pick up.
On the drive to Stonham Aspal, Hugh spotted a bird on the side of the road, so pulled over for a closer look to discover an adult Buzzard which was dazed. He was able to throw a jumper over it and brought it to the Hospital for Jess to have a look at. We suspect that it had been clipped by a vehicle as there were no obvious injuries.
Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a large female, who was suffering from quite severe mite damage to her feathers. We suspect that she had picked these up on her nest and was now moulting into some new feathers to replace the damaged ones. She was given treatment for this and kept under observation for a few days while she recovered from concussion.
New and old primaries (flight feathers) on the wing, showing mite damage.
By the end of the week, she was fighting fit. so Education Officer and Ringer Susan was asked to release her near where she was found. She was so keen to go, we had to cover the airholes in the box to keep her calm for the short journey to her release; a very different bird to the one that arrived! As you can see from the video, she flew off well, before landing in a tree and disturbing a magpie. The magpie didn’t take too kindly to the intrusion but the Buzzard soon flew off again over the fields away from any major roads. Hopefully she’ll stay clear of them in the future!