Hi Everyone,
WBR attended 38 rescues during the month of October.
What a strange month it was. During the first week my records were littered with the words, ‘Bird Not Found’. Can’t remember a time when I had so many ‘no shows’. Finding an injured bird can be difficult, especially when you’re dealing mostly with ‘flight capables’. But I usually manage to locate at least 95% of the creatures I go after. During the beginning of October that dropped to below 50%.
Ten days into the month I’d had enough. Felt very fatigued and decided to take a week off. That went real well (not!). I was exhausted; then I got food poisoning; followed by a heavy flu. This meant that by week three I’d only completed eighteen rescues. It looked like October ’15 might be one of the quietest month on record. The rescue gods must have read my mind and so, when they’d finished laughing, promptly delivered twenty more injured birds in the
next ten days.
I know this will come as a great disappointment to regular readers 🙂 but this month I haven’t got one, single, manky ibis foot to show you. It’s a big break from tradition, but all the ibis I went for fell into the ‘Bird Not Found’ category. The only one I did find was stuck behind a water tank and wasn’t going anywhere. He was quickly released, unharmed.
As compensation I offer you the foot of this dear little crested pigeon (right), caught at The Spit and disentangled of fishing line. I’ve caught and disentangled this same pigeon (and most of her reli’s) several times over the years. Such is the lot of birds that live in areas where fishers are happy to throw their unwanted line on the ground. Same was true for a gull at The Spit. A tight fishing line entanglement was cutting on its foot, but quick intervention did the trick, and the bird is fine.
Another bird that found itself in a real pickle was this young maggie (right). Poor thing had gotten itself caught up in a scrap of heavy netting. Not enough to prevent the creature from flying off, but more than enough to kill it. He was a quick catch and flew away, no doubt, much relieved.
Caller Lyle, from Paradise Point, spotted a cormorant (left) with fishing line coming from its mouth. Being diving birds and excellent fliers, cormis can be tough to catch. Lyle lost sight of the creature for two hours. I raced to the scene when he finally located it again. We watched as the bird spent a productive half hour fishing; our big fear being that it would swallow that short length of line with each fish it swallowed. That would make it impossible to ID from the other cormorants in the area. Eventually the bird came ashore to dry its wings. I waited patiently until I got a clear net shot.
I named the cormi Winston. He spent a week in Currumbin Wildlife Hospital following a major opp to remove a hook from his gut. Happy to report that Winston was released safe and sound back at Paradise Point.
A week later, while enjoying my so called ‘break’, Lyle spotted a darter with stocking around its beak which was preventing it from eating. Despite being ‘off duty’ I’d told all organisations that I was available for critical rescues. This one was critical! Somehow things went awry and days slipped by before I
was made aware of the poor darter. I got one last reported sighting, but that was it. Despite many hours cruising by boat through the Paradise Point canals, the bird couldn’t be found. This was very disappointing because darter are one of my favourites. Had I found the creature, I could have caught him and saved his life (the darter, pictured at right, was saved)
Sadly, swans Becky and Nemo didn’t survive October.
You may remember Becky from last month’s report. She was born on a lake in Elanora and from the very start her top beak began to corrode. By 4 months of age she had only half a top beak. Obviously this would affect her ability to feed. Becky’s situation was borderline, however, after consultation with CWH head vet Mic Pyne, I decided to let Becky be, and keep an eye on her. At the time she was healthy and getting enough food.
At 6 months Becky left the family lake, or more accurately, she was forcefully ejected by her mum and dad. This is the way of swans. When cygnets reach maturity they have to go. Becky moved to the lower Currumbin canals and took up with 5 other birds. At first, things looked OK. I explained to everyone who called about the swan with only half its top beak that we were keeping an eye on Becky and she was alright. What I hadn’t taken into account was Becky’s inability to eat food while out of the water. There is little food in the Currumbin canals and she was unable to pick up bread thrown to her on the ground. Nor could she graze on grass, which forms a critical component of the diet of swans living on artificial canal systems that typically have no water weeds.
Two weeks passed and it became clear that Becky was fading. To leave her any longer would have been cruel. Only rarely are places available at sanctuaries or zoos and a prosthetic beak is not an option unless the bird is in a captive situation. Sadly Becky had to be put to sleep.
Nemo was a lovely swan. When I caught him he had a fish hook in his knee and couldn’t stand due to pain. He also had fishing line wrapped around his body and from there the line disappeared down his throat. I knew he had less than a 50/50 chance. However, by day two, Nemo had exceeded all expectations. His badly swollen leg had gone right down and he was eating well. He couldn’t yet stand, but there was time for that. By weeks end things were looking quite positive … but despite the hospital’s best efforts, Nemo’s knee was shot. He would never walk again. Big birds just can’t survive on one leg. Nemo is in heaven now, where the rules bar entry to heartless arseholes that hook or entangle birds, then cut them free to suffer, without calling for help.
My search continues for the entangled and endangered beach stone-curlew
on Curlew Island. That bird just won’t give me a break. In fact I haven’t sighted him for the past two weeks. His brother, who I call Whiskers (right), showed up again a few days ago. I’d caught Whiskers and disentangle him two months back. He’s the funniest little chap and not afraid of me at all. In fact he completely defies the standard curlew ‘code of behavior’ and comes running over and does a little dance in front of me, then backs off, and comes in for more. This behavior will serve him well should he ever become entangled in fishing line again, which is highly likely. In the meantime I will hunt his brother until I catch him, or until his foot drops off. Hopefully the former.
Happily the two oyster catcher chicks, born to the southern parents on Curlew Island, continue to thrive. Both chicks are about to fledge, which means they’re now safe, or as safe as any bird can be in the wild. Lovely to see.
Speaking of ‘hot chicks’ … this is Sparkie (right). I took him from his parents last week after signs that he was having difficulty walking. Young cygnets (baby swans) have a poor survival rate when things go wrong, but the vets diagnosed a treatable infection and so I arranged for him to go into care up in Landsborough, on the Sunshine 
Coast.
Another cutie was this young Brahminy kite (left), who was a little too early out of the nest. He’s in hospital where he’ll be fed and cared for until ready for release.
The partner of Beetle, the white faced heron that lives at Oxenford Weir, is doing OK. His left leg is dead from an entanglement of fishing line (braid), but he’s over the pain and is looking fit and well, despite his disability. He and Beetle can be seen at the weir daily. I just hope his leg self-amputates quickly and
successfully. I took a bit of flak for leaving him with that dead leg, but I believe he’ll survive the injury. I have no doubt at all that, if given the choice, he would elect to stay with Beetle, rather than have me catch him and administer the green dream.
All the birds that live and fish at Oxenford Weir face a high risk of being targeted by fishers. It’s very sad to see, but on the plus side, those local birds are highly visible, which 
means I can rely on members of the public (rarely the fishers) to call me if a hooked or entangled creature is spotted.
The pelican with the plastic bag caught in its mouth (left) in Arundel is still out there, a week after first being sighted. He was seen again two days ago, but took to the air when I arrived. He’s a tricky boy; very standoffish. Unlike his Broadwater cousins, he won’t come in for fish that’s offered. I’m still confident of catching him.
I caught two other pelicans last week, both suffering from what I thought
was oil on their chest feathers. The first is Chocolate and the second Cinnamon, so named for their colour. Vet Fumi surprised me when, after giving them a thorough wash, she announced that it wasn’t oil and asked what it could be. I had no idea, but the posibility they landed in industrial chemical waste comes to mind. Both creatures are small but feisty and both were infested with lice, which means they were struggling. No doubt the pair will come good in hospital and soon be back out on the Broadwater terrorizing the local mullet!
After a brief respite it looks like members of the ‘set and forget’ brigade are active again. I’m referring to fishers who cast out fishing lines and then head 
off to the movies, or take an OS holiday, leaving their lines and hooks in the water, unattended. This is a guaranteed recipe for catching any waterbirds swimming in the area. Two seriously hooked swans in recent days attest to this. One bird took me a week to track down and catch. I had to enlist the help of ABC Coast FM to broadcast APBs. All the while I feared for that swans life. After 5 days in hospital he was finally released today. No doubt his partner will be very pleased. Fortunately the second swan was caught quickly and de-hooked, then released safely, ten minutes later.
The practice of setting fishing lines and leaving them unattended should be illegal, but it isn’t. Fortunately I managed to locate one group of ‘set and forgetters’ and asked their neighbours, who were understandably concerned that more swans would get entangled, to speak to them. They’ve since pulled in their lines.
On a final note … did any of you buy the pelican that was advertised on Gumtree last Sunday? Bargain at $10, I thought. The ad said it was a two year old female. Looked good in the pic (actually it didn’t look too good at all. Pasty and pale). We think the ad might have been a hoax because the advertiser didn’t answer a message that was left. The ad had disappeared by the next day. Come on, fess up!
I hope you enjoyed the stories in this report. They cover fewer than half of the birds that WBR helped during October.
My daily encounters with the public remind me there are two kinds of people in the world … talkers, and doers. Thank goodness supporters of WBR belong to the second group and can be relied on to help when the need arises. As always, a BIG thank you to all donors. Thanks too to Liz and Paul on the donations committee, and a very special thank you to Jim Downs for his great generosity.
Rowley
El Presidente for Life