Rescued an injured bird

Cornucopia

Bit of a long-shot, but here goes...

I rescued an injured sea bird that I found on a beach today. I believe it's a Turnstone, which are apparently Amber status for preservation.

I registered a call-out with the RSPCA, but they can't come and collect it until tomorrow. They gave me some basic advice, although it was a bit confused because they seemed to think it was a gull for some reason.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to look after it? It's in a small box with some tissue paper to sit on and a little dish of water, and it's quite calm like that. The box is in a quiet, dark room.

It seems to have damaged its wing. Turnstones are usually strong flyers along the shoreline, but it was very windy today, so it may have had an accident of some kind.

googler

Post this on a more specialised forum, such as wildaboutbritain, for a more focused answer.

mrsdwhite

I found an injured bird a while ago, just a young blackird. I called RSPCA, they told me to take it to my local vets4pets, it seems they have an agreement with them to look after injured wildlife. Might be worth trying to find out if one of your local vets can take it in. It didn't cost me anything, they just took my contact details and took the bird in.

Cornucopia

googler wrote: »

Post this on a more specialised forum, such as wildaboutbritain, for a more focused answer.

Thanks. I have done this.

Cornucopia

mrsdwhite wrote: »

....local vets4pets...

Unfortunately the nearest one is nearly as far as the RSPCA centre.

ljonski

an independent rescue centre website?

moggymutt

Most (almost all) vets treat injured wild animals for free until other arrangements such as wildlife hospital can be made. How they feel about out of hours calls, I don't know, but during normal hours, very few vets would refuse the animal free help.

Cornucopia

Thanks for the suggestions.

The bird is quiet, calm and warm with no obvious injuries. I don't think it's drunk any water and I offered it some tiny bits of tuna which it did not show any interest in.

When it was on the beach, it was making a distress call noise, and it hasn't done that since, so I guess that's a good sign?

Not sure there's much else I can do other than give it to the RSPCA tomorrow.

moggymutt

shock is the biggest killer, so make sure the bird can't get cold.

Cornucopia

I wondered about temperature. My flat gets quite toasty in this weather, so no danger of it getting cold.

nikki702

If you can hand it over to a wildlife centre that would be better as the RSPCA are known to destroy birds instead of rehabilitating them