Hi Everyone,
September was quieter at Wild Bird Rescues with only 36 injured birds needing help. However, a vast amount of time did go into tracking another entangled beach stone-curlew that I still haven’t 
caught.
The poor old gulls had a bad time this month with many suffering from hookings and entanglements. Fortunately most were caught and helped. Jenna from SeaWorld Hospital sent me these ‘before and afters’ of a gull that I’d admitted exhausted and with a hook across its bill. I wasn’t ready for the three hooks that vet David extracted from the creature’s throat.
The little fellow (left, above) had also swallowed a hook. Fortunately the wire trace was still visible and protruding from the bird’s 
mouth. I shot a net over the gull and rushed it to SeaWorld for hook removal.
The third bird, at right, was disabled and had a hook in its wing and 
meters of line entangled around its body and both wings.
The entanglement was preventing the bird from eating. Once I got all of the gear off he wolfed down a handful of fresh white bait provided by the fish shop next door, then flew away to lick his wounds and recover.
My dear old friend Margaret has looked after the swans on Elanora Lake for 15 years. I’d love a buck for every swan that I’ve pulled out of that lake with a hook or line around its body.
The most recent hatching included a slightly under developed bird that Margaret called Becky. Its name started out as ‘Beaky’, because beaky’s beak had begun to disintegrate (are you following all this?)
Anyway, Margaret was terribly concerned that she (Becky) would be put down. Fact is, we can’t leave birds out there if they are unable to feed, otherwise they’d slowly starve. That would be cruel. A prosthetic beak won’t last and is only possible if the recipient bird is kept in captivity. But places in zoos or sanctuaries for captive birds are virtually non-existent. At Margaret’s request I inspected Becky and found her condition to be far less severe than originally thought.
She’s lost half of her top beak but is still able to feed. That’s all that matters. I’m happy to let her get on.
This is a D net, so named because of the sideways D shape. It’s a simple but very effective capture tool. The idea is to lure the bird(s) up to the face of the net with food and then quickly pull the net over and down using the cord attached to the apex.
This D net is a big one. Nearly 3 meters across at the base. I’d built and set it up to catch the entangled beach stone-curlew that I talked about in the last capture report. But the device proved hopeless because I couldn’t get the bird within cooee of it. Later that week the curlew allowed me to approach within 12 meters and I was able to blow a net over him. He was disentangled and released 20 minutes later. The problem is his brother, who is also entangled and very wary, won’t allow me closer than 18 meters, which is almost twice the range of the gun.
To gain a fighting advantage I’ve spent 3 weeks developing a remote controlled set up for the gun. This allows me to mount it on a thin pole in the vicinity of an injured bird and then fire it from some distance away. It’s a really good tool and offers pretty much the only chance of catching certain species of wary birds.
I’ve added a much larger net head and 4 extra firing tubes.
The unit can be remotely panned left and right through 180 degrees and remotely fired from 40 meters away. Underneath the net head is a GoPro camera that’s wi-fi’d back to my mobile phone so that I can view directly down the barrel.
Building this unit was a lot of work, but worth it, because there’s only 4 beach stone-curlews, that we know of, in the entire Gold Coast region and before I caught the last one, two of those four were losing their right foot to a fishing line entanglement. That’s a pretty sorry state of affairs.
Thank you for your support. Special thanks to Jim Downs for his generosity and to my committee members, Liz and Paul and to everyone who has donated to WBR. You made it possible for 36 injured birds to get the help they needed in September.
Rowley