Fauna fighting fit at menagerie

It's a busy time of the year for Cuan House wildlife rescue centre in Much Wenlock, with abandoned and injured animals being nursed back to health.

With the BBC's Springwatch under way, Cuan House is also in the throes of its traditional spring activity: feeding babies.

Baby birds need feeding from dawn to dusk, every hour at first, then at slightly longer intervals.

Blackbirds, starlings, thrushes, blue tits, great tits, woodpigeons; you name it, any kind of bird that appears in your garden will show up at Cuan House, orphaned or fallen out of the nest or caught by a cat, and they need lots of TLC if they are going to make it into adulthood.

Some of them are fed on live mealworms, which provide all the protein and other nutrients they need to grow, while young jackdaws, for example, eat cat food as well as insect-based food! Unusual current residents include five baby wagtails. They are all full of life and constantly hungry.

When you open their enclosure to feed them - mealworms for preference - four of the five fly out.

One lands on the chopping board with the food, two fly up on top of an aviary, one lands on the rabbit pen, and all sit with gaping mouths, crying "feed me, feed me".

They are irresistible. Luckily, once feeding time is over, they are not too hard to catch.

The most common inmates at the moment, however, are ducklings - all 32 of them.

One female mallard came in with her ducklings, and while she wasn't looking we managed to slip in an extra one, an orphan, which has now been happily raised as part of her large family.

They have now been released, only to be replaced by two more groups of ducklings, alongside a female that had been shot.

She had a nasty injury to the neck that made her head droop on one side, but she has recovered enough to be released onto a "safe" lake - although she will probably never be wild again.

There has been a happy ending of sorts, though, for one long-term resident. A male mallard came in almost bald at the start of the year.

He had a damaged wing from an old injury, but his main problem was the total lack of feathers.

Clearly, in this state, he wouldn't be able to fly, nor swim, since feathers are a bird's waterproof coat. With treatment, his feathers have been growing back, but painfully slowly, and he has been quite lonely.

A couple of weeks ago, Cuan House founder Megan Morris-Jones introduced two swans to the compound; not the ideal companions, but perhaps better than none.

Then, last week, a beautiful white Indian runner duckling arrived, still downy. Our male has taken the youngster under his wing, and it has given him a new lease of life.

So protective is he that he won't let any of us near his new friend. He chases the swans away, and bites at your legs if you dare to get too close!

Our three young foxes are thriving, playing and playfighting with enthusiasm, until they realise they are being watched, and then they scarper into their "den" to hide.

When the first two arrived they were tiny, with big blue eyes. The female had a wound on her side, apparently caused when she was caught by a dog, but after treatment it has cleared up well.

Initially she was much the braver of the two; the young male was shy and didn't want to play at all, seeming nervous of her boisterousness, but now they are the best of friends.

The third fox, who arrived later than the others, was introduced in the normal way, gradually, and although there is always some bickering while they establish a pecking order, the new fox has settled in well to his temporary home.

So far this year, there have been few hedgehogs in, but the numbers may soon increase. One hog was brought in after being found outside during the day, and she seemed to be suffering breathing problems.

Since arrival, she has shown an unusually huge weight gain - from 1lb 7oz to 1lb 14oz - so it looks as if she may be pregnant! She will be moved into the hedgehog garden in the next few days, where she can safely give birth and rear her hoglets.

A pipistrelle bat arrived with a nasty throat injury caused by a cat. Its chances didn't look too good, but after antibiotics it is on the mend and should be able to be released, once we've had a chance to test-fly it and make sure it's flying well enough to feed.

April and May have also seen several successful releases. A sparrowhawk that came in after being hit by a car, an adult badger, also hit by a car, a tawny owl and a stoat.

The stoat was an orphan, only 7-10 days old, and had to be fed by hand with a bottle.

Megan managed to track down another baby stoat, being reared at the RSPCA's wildlife rescue centre in Taunton, Somerset, and as the ideal situation for any creature is to have the company of its own kind, she drove down to Taunton with the now-weaned orphan, and he has been introduced to his fellow stoat.

With luck, by the time Autumnwatch comes around, all the creatures now at Cuan House will be back where they belong... in the wild.