Hi Everyone,
January was busy at WBR with 42 rescues. 
The ibis did it tough, but then the poor old ibis always do it tough when it comes to fishing line entanglements. I attended eleven rescues for ibis alone during January; five of them in one day! Most birds were caught but some are still out there and can’t be located. The pic shows just one of several life-threatening entanglements that I removed.
Nine swans also needed help during January. Tyson was one of them. He’d become hooked after swimming through an unattended fishing line. It took me a couple of days to catch Tyson and, when I did, I found that he was one of the most powerful swans I’ve ever handled (still got the bloody scratches to prove it) I attempted to remove the hook from his neck on site. That didn’t work because I could barely feel it. The hospital then spent hours trying to find and remove that hook. They could see it on x-ray but couldn’t locate it manually. You can’t just go cutting and probing around in a bird’s neck or you risk severing nerves and other vital structures. In the end, having established the hook was un-findable, and not a serious risk, the decision was made to let things be and return Tyson to his waiting family.
Early one Sunday morning I was called to a bird hanging
by cord from a tree. It sounded, from the callers description, like a currawong. Fortunately the creature was attached to a low branch, just above head height. Needless to say it was very distressed and all of its family were perched around watching and calling. Again, fishing 
line was the culprit. The risk for birds hanging upside down and struggling is not just the damage done by the line, but rather the ripping of tendons and dislocation of joints. These are irreparable injuries and even more likely to cause the creature’s demise than the entanglement itself. Although this bird’s toes were damaged and bloody, it’s leg was intact and still functioning. Very lucky indeed. I treated its wounds and released the creature immediately to a chorus of happy ‘currawongy’ like calls from all of his mates.
The same fate also befell a cormorant out on the tidal flats in front of Ephraim Island, however, from the first, this rescue had ‘difficulty’ written all over it. The report had come in right on dusk. Caller Murray could see the bird hanging from a mangrove tree some 8m (25ft) above the water. To make matters worse it was one hour before high tide, meaning the water was only going to get deeper.
I rushed to the island and arrived while there was just enough light to observe the bird from the shore through binoculars. I thought it was dead. Murray assured me that it wasn’t, and he was right. Then a call was placed to the RSPCA ambo service in Brisbane.
Their vans carry all sorts of goodies like long poles, which was exactly what I needed. An hour later Emma arrived in the ambo. By then it was pitch black. I lashed my knife to the end of an enormous Energex pole and together we trudged out onto the mudflats in thigh deep water, trying to locate the bird with flashlights and shuffling to avoid the stingrays. We soon found it.
Then began the very difficult task of guiding and supporting a 9m long pole, tipped with a very sharp knife, while trying to cut the short length of line barely visible above the dangling bird’s feet, all through drizzling rain. Not easy, I can tell you, especially when the bird is up as high as a two storey building. I sawed and sawed but got nowhere. We concluded that the line must be the dreaded ‘braid’; almost un-cuttable. 
Finally I got lucky and the bird came plummeting down. It all happened too fast for Emma to get a net over it before the cormi dashed away from us. This was both good and bad. Very good that the bird was now free and alive, but not so good because we’d been unable to check for hooks or other injuries. Hopefully the creatures is OK. The bird pictured is not the one we rescued but another that I cut from an adjacent mangrove tree, three years ago, hanging from a fish hook in its ankle. Ouch!!
More fishing line. Truly, it never bloody ends! Caller Robin noticed this poor corella with part of a tree branch lashed to its foot by line. I suspect the bird had previously spent time dangling from that branch because the tendons in its leg were shot. Although bad, corellas are one species that can get by with the use of just one leg. I set up a snare and quickly caught the bird. If a rescuer 
doesn’t already know, then they’ll soon find out, that all parrots, even the little ones, mean business when you try to grab them. Unless you’ve got plenty of towel, or thick glove, between your hand and that beak, it will be an experience that remains sharply etched into your memory (for life). In fact, the look on this fella’s face should be warning enough. The best I could do for him was remove the fishing line and that stick. He’ll have to cope on just one leg, but should be OK. Looking at the picture it’s a bit hard to tell where the foot stops and the stick begins.
Finally, this family of seven swans had entered a storm water pipe running off a lake in Coombabah, dropped out the end; fell nearly 2 meters into the adjacent river, then traveled downstream before hauling out half a ‘k’ away. They made their way up an embankment, across a road and into a small park next to another lake. Only problem was the park was fenced. Someone must have opened the gate. Next thing, lakeside residents were surprised to find that a new family of two adults swans with five tiny cygnets had appeared from nowhere.
Their new location presented some problems, the biggest being the concrete retaining wall around the lake, which meant there was no place for the birds to get out of the water. Also, this lake was salt, whereas their home lake was fresh water.
This is not a big deal because black swans can live in either, but salt waterways tend to have a lot less natural food.
My first priority was to provide something that would allow the cygnets to get out of the water. There was only one solution, so I jumped in and by scrounging, begging and borrowing, found enough bricks and concrete blocks to build a plinth in shallow water that would allow the whole family to rest and also to climb out onto a resident’s front lawn. This gave the birds access to grass so they could feed. Other residents also set up low platforms for them to rest upon.
Five weeks on and all are doing remarkably well, less one poor little guy that we believe was taken by an eel. Not only is the family using the plinth to climb out of the water and graze on the lawn but the parents have also built a nest in the shallows which has proven popular with their cygnets.
Once again, sincere thanks to everyone who supports Wild Bird Rescues. All of the above birds, plus thirty five others, got the help they needed in January because of your kindness and generosity.
Rowley