Hey guys!

Firstly, please accept my sincere apologies for not blogging here much anymore - I've generally kept them to Myspace as I can upload more photos etc etc. Anyway...

The wildlife rescue service is going to be launched in just one week from today! I have a rather rubbish temporary website set up: http://www.wildliferescuer.webs.com and obviously there's my myspace: http://www.myspace.com/wildliferescuer - if you're signed up, add me to your friends list!

I might've mentioned the name of the service in previous blogs: The Wildlife Rescuer - simple, to the point etc - perfect!

I decided that the purpose of the service should change slightly also - I was hoping to rent a barn to set up a hospital but that's been unsuccessful to date so the purpose of the service now is to act as a go-between between animal and specialist i.e. to respond to a call-out and to take the animal to the most appropriate help. Smaller animals such as garden birds or hedgehogs, I'm able to care for here at my home but I'm afraid there's no way I could keep larger mammals, birds of prey etc here so they'd have to go straight to a wildlife sanctuary for rehabilitation.

I've had 2 rescues to date (1 successful and 1 unsuccessful) - the first was a fledgling blackbird I came across in the middle of a busy main road. It was stumbling along (fortunately, between 2 traffic islands - how's that for lucky!) and it was cold and raining so I pulled up, dodged traffic, put it in an animal transporter box and took it to the nearest wildlife hospital (fortunately, I was on my way to the wildlife centre that was training me anyway so I was only 15 minutes away - that's one lucky bird!) I named it "23", as this was the number on its ring. I'm pleased to announce that, after a bit of recuperation, it made a full recovery and has since been released. A photo of 23 is featured on my Myspace site

The second rescue was my first requested rescue. A lady called me after seeing a magpie injured on the side of the road. Her colleague had seen it in the morning on her way to work and she had then seen it at lunchtime when she returned from a meeting. I agreed to go check it out as she was too scared to touch it, but unfortunately, it was nowhere to be seen. I don't get disheartened by such things - even if the bird died, that's nature's way - it will become food for another animal. That's the food chain. I was very glad that this lady thought to contact me though, and it did give me more motivation to keep things moving.

News, news... my story will be featuring in my staff newspaper next week - that'll be super cool! I'll be scanning a copy for my Myspace page!

I'm a soon-to-be member of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society - have filled out all the necessary forms and will be sending off on Monday. That's a big thing because they'll advertise my details on their website and they have given me the biggest pack of hedgehog booklets that I can use or reproduce to help my cause - rock on!!!

So in a nutshell, that's TWR to date - kick-off is next Saturday so watch this space! I promise I'll keep you updated as and when things start happening :-)

All the best guys!!

Sian x