On call 24/7 for county wildlife

Julia Kaminski explains the work of the charity Cuan House Wildlife Rescue.

Driving along the main road into Shrewsbury, we stop at traffic lights, where the occupants of the vehicle in the next lane do a double-take at our car. Eight swans are lined up on the back seat, tall white necks poking up out of their bags. An odd sight for passers-by; an even odder experience for the birds.

The swans - three adults and five juveniles - have been at Cuan House Wildlife Rescue in Much Wenlock for several months.

They are not one family; all have arrived at different times because of injury or sickness, or because they have been abandoned by their parents. Although swans can sometimes be terrible bullies, these individuals have taken to each other and got on incredibly well, and are now a tight-knit little group, so they are all going to be released together.

We line them up on the bank of the lake, and then three of us - Megan Morris-Jones, who founded and runs the rehab centre, Carolyn, her deputy, and me, a volunteer, unzip the bags and release the swans into the water, one, two, three, as quickly as possible so none of them get left behind. After the momentary chaos, they swim serenely off across the lake, stretching their wings, happy with their new-found freedom.

Sometimes a swan will come in because it has injured a wing or leg after hitting power-lines. A juvenile may have been chased away from its family, and is too young to cope on its own. But many of the swans that arrive at Cuan House are suffering from lead-poisoning, the result of lead in the water, either from lead shot or from years of lead weights lost or abandoned by anglers.

Many of these are now banned and unavailable in this country, but the past years of use have left a deadly legacy. Lead-poisoning will often lead, ultimately, to death if not treated, but luckily a swan can be cured if brought in in time. It's a long, expensive process. All swans admitted undergo a blood test and then, depending on the severity of the poisoning, a course of treatment, sometimes two or three. Fishing lines and hooks also feature largely in the list of injuries of many of the water birds we see.

Many swans are brought in to us by the RSPCA after calls from the public, since they can be tricky to catch - as I know from bitter experience, when a friend and I spotted a sick-looking swan recently while out feeding the ducks. We decided to grab him, which involved an unscheduled cold dip for me and a bit of a shock for the swan, who suddenly found himself wrapped in a blanket and bundled into the car.

It was the right decision, though; his blood test showed 45.6 micromols of lead in his blood - an unbelievably high level - and he is still receiving medication. One of the lovely things about this particular incident was that, since all swans are ringed, we were able to track his history. He had been a patient at Cuan House years before, after an accident, and is now about 12 years old. With any luck, he'll make a full recovery and live to swim another day.

Swans are just one of many species that come through the doors of Cuan House, a registered charity, which is busy 24/7. Hedgehogs, badgers, foxes, bats and polecats are all regular patients, along with the swans, ducks and geese, owls, songbirds, pigeons, herons and several species of bird of prey - buzzards, kestrels, sparrowhawks, very occasionally a merlin.

In the spring, there are multitudes of tiny hedgehogs and birds, as well as the usual road casualties. Increasingly, there are baby hedgehogs in the autumn, too - autumn orphans - as our milder climate is leading to many hogs having a second litter late in the summer. Hoglets born late have much less chance to grow and put on the weight necessary to survive the winter in hibernation. Typically, they need to weigh at least 600g to get through the winter.

We can have as many as 30 hedgehogs in residence at any one time. There are pens to house just one, pens suitable for families of four or five, outside 'hutches' on the grass with covered, straw beds, to which the hogs can migrate once they are well enough and fat enough, and then the final step before being released into the wild, one of the hedgehog gardens - a much larger space but still enclosed, where they can have a taste of freedom but still get a square meal every night.

The aim at Cuan House is for all creatures to be released into the wild. The success rate varies between species. In 2006, 1,300 animals and birds were admitted and treated. Of those that survived the initial 48 hours, over 80 per cent were returned to the wild. We would take in anything up to 1,500 in a year.

Doing a release is one of the most joyous elements of the work here; to see a kestrel take off into the sky, or a badger take its first tentative steps, sniffing the air, after several weeks in captivity. The emphasis is on returning a creature to the area from where they came, where they may have a mate waiting, or at least will be familiar with their territory.

Some days, though, you lose a baby bird or a hoglet, some days members of the public bring in an animal that is just too badly injured and has to be put to sleep. Other days will involve a trip to the vets nearby, who do great work for us, either to get a diagnosis, or for an operation, and sometimes they don't come back. And every day, there is cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning.

For Megan, who founded the centre in 1990, there is also the constant issue of fundraising. The centre is the only one in Shropshire open 24 hours a day, all year round. Wildlife casualties receive immediate first aid on arrival before any long-term treatment is decided.

And it all costs money. Cuan House is supported financially by the RSPCA, but still has to raise more than £35,000 annually to maintain the facilities and daily running costs. Megan and a network of supporters hold many fundraising events throughout Shropshire - evening events, concerts, and market stalls.

One thing's for sure . . . the wildlife of Shropshire is all the richer for it.