Henley arrived with us at the end of August, we weren’t expecting to take in an adult gull at this stage as in order to manage our capacity we had restricted ourselves to this seasons young gulls only.
However, Henley had been taken into Rosemullion Veterinary Practice in Falmouth with some nasty head wounds and an injured eye. Fortunately she tested negative for Avian Influenza (bird flu) so spent several days with them undergoing treatment and now needed some ongoing TLC so how could we refuse?
When she arrived she looked very sorry for herself with a scabby head and a generally depressed appearance.
Below shows her having just had a bath (by choice) and eyeing up her fish supper.
What a difference 10 days makes! Soon she completed her treatment and was ready to join some of our gentler youngsters out in a sheltered aviary. The video below shows her delightedly having a lovely bath to get the ‘human’ off her feathers!
Now the rest of the work was mainly down to her. She was eating well, preening and happy enough wandering around the aviary, now all she needed to do was gain more weight and get some flying practice in.
2 weeks later she is still with us but looks (and feels) so much better! She is now using the perches and partition to fly and jump on and off so it looks like she’ll be ready for release in a couple of weeks.
Here at Mousehole Wild Bird Hospital Cornwall we love a happy ending, come back soon for an update on Henley and our other gulls.