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... 6th November 2025 This time of year the girls and volunteers are deep cleaning aviaries that have been vacated by birds having been released. There is often a queue forming for larger aviaries needed as birds prepare for independent life in the wild. Now that queue has  come to an end, it is time for a really deep clean so that the aviaries will be ready for next season. The picture this week shows Errol in the undercover area of his aviary. The wood panelling gives him a sheltered and private area he feels safe in. All our aviaries have this type of sheltered area in one form or another. The wood is fitted on the outside of the wire as it will probably need repairing or replacing during the lifetime of the aviary. The problem is that birds, especially birds of prey, project their poo onto the wood through the wire. This is very difficult to clean. Jackie tried a battery operated steam cleaner that one of our volunteers thought would work. She was super impressed and absolutely delighted when a couple who support us offered the money to buy one. Thank you so much for this superb gift. Jackie said it cleaned so quickly and with no need for electric cables, as the aviaries are some way from power points. We are just waiting for bonfire night to be over and then we have two Barn Owl youngsters ready for release as well as some assorted pigeons. Now most of our time is taken up with hedgehogs. We have nine in the cooler Big Room to add a final bit of weight before they hibernate for the winter. The Hedgehog Shed is ready and waiting, cages all cleaned and ready. We have twelve in the Towers in the Recovery Room, very slowly adding weight but not sufficiently heavy to move to the cooler room.  Eight are still under 500 grams and on heat pads. If you see a small hedgehog out during the day please bring it in. We have had a good many this year far too small to survive hibernation so do help them if you can. Please check any bonfires and piles of leaves before raking up in case there is a wee hog curled up underneath. Holly has been busy taking photographs of our overwintering hogs so that they can be sponsored. Barbara has the paperwork ready, so do think about sponsoring yourself or as a lovely gift for someone.  Avian Influenza is here again. We have had reports this weekend quite close to us of dead and sick swans. Please take care around any sick bird. Keep your distance and leave nature to take its course or try D.E.F.R.A. We cannot take in any SICK bird and have to take extra precautions on site. I must thank the kind ladies who have sent in lovely items of craft work for our Christmas Fair which is to be held on Saturday 15th November 10.30 a.m. – 2 p.m. We are at the Berwick Baptist Church, Golden Square. Do come along, there will be soup and filled rolls, mince pies, tea, and coffee. We have plenty of stalls Wine or Water is always popular and well as a Tombola, Craft Stall and Sales table. A huge raffle and a Silent Auction for a beautiful blanket of animal pictures. I will get Gill to use a picture of it next week. It is absolutely super. Do come along if you can, without the public supporting what we do, we can’t do it. We don’t have cuddly puppies or kittens but we do care about all the wild things that make our lives complete. Pat Goff 30th October 2025 Now that the clocks have gone back, we are experiencing some colder nights and the time is approaching when hedgehogs need to find themselves somewhere to curl up for their winter hibernation.  This is also the time when piles of leaves have gathered in the corners of our gardens which are ideal places for them to sleep, particularly the dry leaves.  There is always a chance that your pile of leaves will have a hedgehog curled up in it, so please check before you rake them up and if possible, leave them where they are – they will provide feed for the garden once the hedgehog moves on in the spring.  It is also approaching bonfire night which is a frightening time for wildlife and hedgehogs may have settled at the bottom of the bonfire stack so please check for them before you light the fire and if possible, restack it.  Hedgehog numbers have been in decline for some time, it has been quoted on social media in the last week that they have declined from 30 million in the 1950’s to just 1 million today, although as hedgehogs are nocturnal and elusive, these numbers are estimated.  Hibernation is a difficult time for them, so we need to give them every chance.  There are 28 hedgehogs currently at the Rollo Centre, mostly in the inside warmer rooms.  These hedgehogs are eating well and piling on the weight, probably an instinctive behaviour as they are preparing for winter even if they aren’t all going to be big enough for hibernating this year.  Once they have put on enough weight to hibernate, they will be moved out into the colder big room.  Hopefully the ones that are in the big room will soon start to settle down reducing the cleaning and, importantly, the food bill.  On an average day, each hedgehog eats about half of a can of dog food so with current numbers, we are currently getting through about 100 cans of food per week.  The hedgehogs that are with us now, and any future ones brought in, will stay through until next April time which amounts to a lot of cans.  In order to help us meet these costs, we are launching our annual Sponsor A Hedgehog appeal where you can select one of our hedgehogs to sponsor either for yourself, or as a gift for a friend or relative.  You choose the hedgehog that you like from a selection of pictures of those in our care, give it a name, and leave your contact details so that you can receive an update on its progress in the springtime before, hopefully, it is successfully released back into the wild.  The picture shows hedgehog number MY71 who, I’m sure you will agree, is a very handsome fellow and is looking at the camera with some suspicion.  The numbering is our logging system where “M" stands for a mammal rather than a bird, the “Y” is the reference letter used for the 2025 calendar year, and the “71” means it is the 71st mammal registered in the year.  If you are able to sponsor a hedgehog the cost is £30 and you can either call in to the Rollo Centre to set up the sponsorship, or alternatively, come and visit us at some Berwick Christmas events.  Our Christmas Fair is on the 15th November, 10:30am to 2pm at Berwick Baptist Church and if you can’t make that one, we will also be at the Charity Christmas Market on the 29th November in Berwick Town Hall, 10am to 3pm. Gill Powell 23rd October 2025 Last time I said I would let you all know how many Owls we have taken into our care this year. I checked up the numbers last weekend and we have had 12 Barn Owls in and 6 Tawny Owls. We have two young Barn Owls that will be checked over by the ringer on Tuesday, hopefully he will ring them and they can spend a little time in the Big Flight before they are released. We only have three aviaries that are suitable for owls so we have to be careful to give each bird a time in our one very big aviary so they can really stretch their wings and strengthen their flight muscles before they go. This can mean a bit of jiggling about to make sure we get the best use out of our bigger aviaries. One is out of action at the moment because the netting roof is rotting and falling in holes. We have managed by temporarily covering the holes but now we are able to leave the aviary empty we can ask Ian to check it out and get together a plan to repair the roof and maybe part of the sides of the aviary to get it back into good condition again. It will be quite an expensive job so we shall have to do a bit of extra fund raising to cover the costs.  Ian has done such a good job of the pond areas making and fitting new fencing. He is working on the small pond now and it is looking very smart. Thank you Ian. We have an adult Barn Owl that has feathers to grow before it can be released. Some of his flight feathers were broken when he was found on a roadside, probably after he was hit by a car. His feathers are gradually growing in so he is on his way. One piece of good news was that the Tawny Owl ‘Baby’ who was released last month has been sighted near to where we released him. We know there are other Tawny Owls around and Jim was able to put food out for him if he was struggling. He hasn’t taken the food, so must be doing OK. I did a bit of further counting when I was checking on the number of Owls we had in this year. I counted up the pigeons we had cared for. Ferals, Wood Pigeons and Collared Doves, came to a total of 60. I think about half of these were nestlings. The picture this week shows two youngsters still being hand fed twice a day, but starting to peck up. Pigeons breed all year round so we usually have at least one in at any time. I think during the next week we shall be ready for hedgehog sponsoring. It makes an ideal gift, and helps us cover the cost of feeding the hogs through the winter. The smaller ones will have to be kept warm and well fed until they are heavy enough to hibernate for a while. They create an awful lot of washing with towels and fleeces. Thank you to the kind person that dropped off a box of cleaning materials for us. It saved us a lot of money. Cages have to be thoroughly cleaned every day and it would surprise a lot of people how hedgehogs can manage to spread their poo. Come to our Christmas Fair which is earlier this year on Saturday 15th November 10.30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Berwick Baptist Church. Tombola, Wine or Water, refreshements including soup, rolls, and mince pies, so do come along and join us. Pat Goff