Latest News Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) Sadly bird flu is now moving on from sea birds, to other species of birds, including geese, ducks and swans, and the Trust is receiving many calls from the public spotting sick birds. There is no treatment available and sick birds will often die within a day of showing symptoms. We cannot rescue or accept sick birds at the Centre as this would compromise those birds already in our care and could lead to the Centre being forced to shut down. Our advice, painful as it is to give, is to leave the bird and let nature take its course. Do not touch a dead bird or let a dog near it. The local Council is responsible for collecting them in a controlled manner. In some cases you may report findings to DEFRA on 03459 335577 or visit their web site for detailed advice here. *************************** "Swan Notes" News items written by Trust members and volunteers and usually appearing in the “Berwick Advertiser" newspaper each week. For those unable to read these items, and those living outside the Berwick area, here are the last few editions... 19th December 2024 I am writing this piece on Sunday afternoon after returning from Berwick Garden Centre where we had our volunteers Christmas Lunch. It was lovely for everyone to get together and meet one another as usually volunteers only regularly see the other volunteers working on the same day. We had a super meal and I think everyone enjoyed it. I hope all readers will have a wonderful Christmas and New Year. I am going for a cataract operation tomorrow which is why I am doing the jottings today (Sunday) instead of Monday. I have just been away for three weeks so Errol and Jimmy hedgehog wrote as well and Terry, my brother and volunteer, also wrote a week. Next week as my eyes won’t be working very well Barbara is writing. Gill (another volunteer and committee member) has also said she will do a week. Hopefully this will get me through the worst part of my vision problems. Jackie sent me the photo this week which shows the state of one of the Tower cages after a night of activity by a hedgehog. Not one page of two newspapers used to line the cage was left intact. The rest were completely shredded. This is why we are so grateful for the newspapers that you bring in to us. We have over forty hedgehogs all using at least two newspapers each day so we need a constant supply. It is the same for the towels their spines pull threads when they roll themselves up to sleep. We are  having to check them over as they can get their claws caught in long threads if they are loose. The thread gets wrapped right round their claws and toes and then have to be cut away. Any hand towels you can spare will be very useful to us. Hedgehogs at the moment are all still in the main building. We currently have several that are the right weight to hibernate but they are still not asleep as the weather is not really cold enough to get them nodding off. We have more than a dozen in the big room with straw in their nest boxes all ready. After Christmas some will be moved into the Hogwards Shed for hibernation. The other smaller hogs in the recovery room are not yet big enough to move to a cooler room so there is no rush to move them out and to be fair, it is a lot easier for volunteers to do the cage cleaning and feeding in the big room than it will be in an outside shed, even one as big as Hogwards. Sometimes though I find the big room colder than outside. Our fundraising efforts around Christmas this year have been at various venues and at other charity events. We thought this would be an easier way of meeting the public than by having our own fair which has always been difficult to organise. Jackie got the items ready for the table top sales and Barbara, Jackie and Mandy manned the stalls with help from other volunteers. We have raised over £1,000 this way but we all decided it was even harder doing things this way and all the volunteers missed the fun of all being involved and meeting up together. Next year we shall be holding our own Christmas Fair. Next week I will give an update on our raffle which is to be drawn on Wednesday this week. We still have one or two hedgehogs needing sponsors so please ring the Rollo Centre and we can let you know how to do it. It can make an ideal Christmas present. Pat Goff 12th December 2024 My name is Jimmy. I am one of the hedgehogs that are being cared for at the Trust. I am very lucky because I have a name. A very nice gentleman sponsored me. We are very well looked after here. It is nice to have our beds changed every day. We do make them in a bit of a mess. We get a nice fresh bowl of food everyday and calciworms are sprinkled on the top as a treat. a bowl of clean water, clean towels to roll up in as a bed, we are very lucky. Some of us still have not been sponsored so please pick one of them and give them a proper name. Some of us came into the Rollo Centre because we had hurt ourselves and some of us lost our mums and dads and needed some help to get bigger. Some hedgehogs get injured with garden tools. We can’t be seen when we are hiding in piles of leaves, then we get hurt with strimmers and mowers. We can get run over on the roads, eaten by badgers, and picked up by dogs. We fall down drains and get stuck. We can get poisoned with slug pellets and rat bait. The hedges we live around are being cut down and the fields made big. Houses get built on the land we used to live on so we can’t roam around enough to find our food. It is a wonder there are any of us left. Thankfully, there are a lot of people trying to help us. Gardeners like to have one of us living in their garden as we eat up a lot of pests. Kind folk make a hole in their fence so that we can go through to other gardens looking for our food. Others leave us a wee bowl of dog food and water in case we are hungry. Some even put little wooden boxes out with leaves and straw inside for us to sleep in, but best of all are places like the Trust where all the volunteers look after us. We get weighed daily to make sure we are healthy and putting on the weight we will need to hibernate. If we are off colour and don’t eat we get medicine called ‘First Aid’ to help us get better. When we are tiny we get a heat pad with a fluffy fleece covering and another one to roll up in so we keep cosy. If we get too cold when we are tiny we die. The room we are kept in is always warm, so we stay well. We can increase in weight by 10 or 20 grams a day so it takes a while to get to over 700 grams so that we can think about hibernating.  I am only 400 grams now so I will have to stay here in my plastic cage for a while. When I reach over 500 grams I will go into ‘The Towers’. I will be big enough to keep myself warm without a heat pad but still need a warm room. I shall stay in the towers until I am over 700 grams when I shall be big enough to get cooler and get ready to hibernate. This happens in ‘Nan’s Nest’ in the big room. We get straw for beds in these wooden cages. When I go to sleep I will be moved to the Hogwards Shed where I can sleep the cold weather away. In the spring when I wake up, I will have a few more dinners, then I can go out in the big wide world, a big healthy hedgehog. Pat Goff 5th December 2024 My sister, Pat,  has asked me to do a piece this week and thought I would try to encourage readers to consider joining us as a volunteer. We only have two paid employees, so much of the work at the Rollo Centre is carried out by unpaid volunteers who usually come in for a few hours once a week in the morning. I have only been doing this hands on work for a year or so and have found it very rewarding, so maybe you would too. There are many ways in which you might be able to volunteer, such as repairs, cleaning or fundraising, so you don’t have to handle wildlife if you don’t fancy that, but we mostly need volunteers who can help with cleaning out the pens and cages and feeding the animals in our care. It’s fair to say that this can get a bit messy at times, but I’m told it’s not much different from dealing with babies and most people seem to manage that. We provide training so you can learn to work with the various wildlife which comes through the Centre. Of course, handling wildlife is different from dealing with domestic pets. They are not always friendly and can be dangerous, so new volunteers are not expected to handle such wildlife until well trained and well fitted out with protective gear. In the autumn we are mostly dealing with hedgehogs which involves a lot of work, but this reduces somewhat as many of them go into hibernation and into our “Hogwards” shed where they only need a quick check each day to see if any dried food has been touched as they do wake up at times and take a little food. The younger ones still awake need cleaning and feeding every day and this is a good introduction for new volunteers as hedgehogs are very placid and easy to handle. Each one is weighed before putting it in a holding box while the cage is cleaned and fresh newspaper and towels provided. Fresh dog food and water is put in and the hedgehog is returned. Some head straight for the food bowl and I’ve always been surprised at how much food they can get down. Some even get their bowls topped up later in the day. The picture today shows The Towers that holds 18 hogs. As Spring arrives and the hedgehogs are released back into the wild the main influx at the Centre is of small birds that become lost or orphaned or fall out of nests. We all like to see ducklings when they come in, but they can get a bit messy and are a bit of a handful when moving for cage cleaning. Gulls are nice enough at this fluffy stage as well but soon turn into rowdy youngsters and we’re glad to see them off as they make for a lot of cleaning. We often get cygnets arrive at this time of year as their parents drive them off ready for a new brood. At least they are easy to get on with being quite friendly with us humans. We are all interested to see the more unusual arrivals at the Centre, particularly the owls and other raptors. They need very careful handling as their talons are very powerful, so it’s for our more experienced volunteers. I keep a respectful distance. The exception to this is our mascot Errol the tawny owl who is quite happy for us to enter his aviary and takes a great interest in the goings on at the Centre. If you fancy joining us get in touch. Terry Morris