Rescue!...

Monday was a day of wonder.

A tale to tell - we were driving to the dump and I spotted a dead bird on the side of the road.  Being an area were Red Kites are pretty common I thought it might be one of those.  We were on a busy road and going to fast to look carefully so carried on.

On the way back from the dump I slowed to see if we could identify it; the idea being that we would take the body to the RSPCB if it were a Kite.  Not sure what my idea was I thought it might be handy for the Red Kite  folk to know what had happened to one of their birds....

anyway...

So as we approached it we noticed that it was in fact alive and sitting in the gutter of the road, all huddled up - I thought it was an owl.

We pulled over, dodged traffic and managed to get it.  It was in shock very still, eyes closed but definately still alive.  H was in the car with us so he wrapped in a blanket and held it on his lap till we reached a local vets.  The vet nurse gave us a holding box and took a look at the bird which was in fact a young

Kestrel!

We contacted St Tiggwinkles wildlife hospital and took the bird over to them.  When we left the bird was'very lively' and coming too.

We hope dearly that it makes a full recovery and is able to be released.  I have a couple of scratchs where the bird assumed my fingers were a perch and dug its talons in, but it was so soft! So small too, bigger than a garden bird but just so much smaller than I assumed.

So where are the photos you cry?

You wont believe it but I didn't have the camera in my bag!  I've a couple of dodgey phone pictures which when I work out how to get onto here I will do but honestly we really, truly did rescue a Kestrel!

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