Autumnwatchers to the rescue: Help a house martin
Post categories: Autumnwatch,ÌýAutumnwatch Unsprung
| 12:34 UK time, Tuesday, 11 October 2011
If you were watching last week’s Unsprung you’ll know that we featured a beautiful young albino squirrel brought in by .
HART Wildlife Rescue carer Charmian with the unlucky house martin
They run a wildlife hospital in North East Hampshire providing rescue, treatment and rehabilitation to Hampshire and its surrounds. HART have contacted the Unsprung team urgently to ask for your help!
This young house martin was brought in by a lady from Alton a few weeks ago. He was found below a nest full of young house martins so HART think he may have fallen out or even have been pushed. House martins won’t feed young on the ground and the nest was too high to replace the youngster without causing significant disturbance to the other fledglings, so HART came to the rescue.
When this little chap arrived he was freezing cold, thin and weak. The carers also noticed that his right leg wasn’t gripping properly. They put him in an incubator to warm up and fed him wax worms every 15 minutes until he perked up and started gaping for food. Over the next few days with some TLC he brightened up and his leg improved and now he’s raring to go.
This little chap is raring to go
But there’s a problem. With no reports of any other house martins in the area, HART are worried that he won’t be able to find his way to Africa on his own. Autumn migration is well underway for house martins but there may be some passing through.
We need your help. HART would like to know if you have seen any house martins within travelling distance (30 miles or so) of Hampshire. Eyes to the skies everyone!
Let us know about by commenting below please.
Comment number 1.
At 11th Oct 2011, susanna boni wrote:On Autumnwatch Wildlife forum, go the messageboard and see how many threads are reporting house martins and swallows still in nest both in Scotland and England. I write from Italy and replied to some advising that temperatures in southern europe have dropped some 14 degrees since last Friday, we currently at 5-7 degrees C at night and 16 during the day. Weather forcast is going to worsen from next Thursday, with strong northern winds. So please check if the little h.martin can find some expert company for the migration. Good luck to him and thanks for rescue! xx Susanna Boni
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