(Header image made with microsoft co-pilot)
This blog reflects my personal experiences and opinions and does not represent or reflect those of DierenAmbulance Nederrijn.
Pre-Rescue Stuff
Service wise, it was very quiet and there wasn’t much to do around the base, so we convinced ourselves the ambulance needed a wash.
Seeing as I had a hose in my hand, and seeing that the centralist had fizzed her water over me, I saw fit for some retaliation. But you know how some ladies can give you the look which says “Don’t even think about it”? So I thought instead about washing my own car – and felt guilty when the driver helped me do it!
Blue Pigeon
Our first rescue was a pigeon who’d been spotted walking circles in a garden but was not flying away. The finder had placed a crate over him, so we headed on over to pick him up. Perhaps he’d fallen from one of the nearby structures in their garden? We were awaited as we pulled the rescue box and plastic gloves from the ambulance, and shown the way.
The driver asked me if I minded handling the pigeon. I wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t want to, so I asked; it seemed like she was asking me for a favour, when in fact I think it was the other way around!
The back garden was paved with wet moss or something growing over it which made it incredibly slippery. I was a little concerned it would be difficult chasing the pigeon if he escaped whilst I tried to catch him. In the end, grabbing hold of him was easy enough!
The description in the admin noted there was blue on the side of his head, so I looked to find his injury. I saw nothing! The finder told me afterwards the “blue” description was to help us identify which kind of pigeon it was! He pecked my hand a little as I looked him over, and it was during this time when the driver noticed he had difficulty breathing.
I felt one of his legs grip my finger as I held him and it seemed to me he was asking me for help – or was already grateful for it. This was the first time a pigeon has done that to me, and the experience reminded me of the para at the wildlife shelter who was bananas over pigeons. I placed him into the rescue box, advised the finder to clean the crate, and completed the admin back in the ambulance.
I couldn’t find a matching picture of the pigeon in the admin, so put him down as a “town pigeon”.
A “Beautiful Bird”
The message from the centralist for the next rescue had me confused and curious at the time, but now I see it again, I see where it went wrong!
A “beautiful bird” was sitting inside a construction site, and when it’s called then it comes down. We were to decide whether we needed to bring the bird with us (somewhere…) or let it go free.
We faffed around a bit once we arrived on site because the construction site was construction within an apartment. This meant we needed to know what equipment to bring with us to save us running back and forth between the ambulance and an apartment buried somewhere within a complex. Not knowing anything about the bird, we dug out some photos that had been sent through. It looked like a small (silhouetted) bird on a window, but it wasn’t much to go by.
Thankfully the construction worker came out to meet us and gave us the low down – he’d found a small bird by some construction materials in the room where he was working. It was easy to pick the bird up and put him under a bucket. This info. made things much simpler for us; we only needed a rescue box and no nets. The chap lead us to the top floor of the block of flats (where I couldn’t help noticing that every apartment on each floor had the same number. The way the Dutch number their houses along streets is bizarre – apparently this extends to apartments too.)
The rescue description now made more sense:
“Him” and “He” referred to the construction worker (not the beautiful bird) who would come down and show us which apartment to enter!
We were shown to the bucket which was actually open end up and covered with a thick cloth, a layer of plastic and another cloth. He said he’d been careful to leave an airway so that the bird could breath. This was evidently true because when we pulled all(!) of the covers away, there was no bird!
I looked around the apartment for any sign of our little friend whilst the worker – who couldn’t believe the bird had escaped – checked and rechecked the bucket! I couldn’t find him, so I left a magazine with the chap who promised he’d call us back if the bird showed up again. He felt guilty for calling us out when there was no bird, but we reassured him it was better to call us out by mistake like this, rather than not call us when there was an animal in distress.
We’d just reached the stairs when he called us back! He’d spotted the bird against the window, which I suppose makes sense because that’s where he was fist seen. I felt like an idiot; I hadn’t even thought about checking the windows. Another lesson…
It was remarkably easy to catch this bird. My first thought was to approach him from behind so he wouldn’t be nervous and fly away. But construction materials over the floor made this difficult. Now I come to think of it, I was ‘on top’ of him as his belly was against the plastic. In any case, I soon had the tiny thing in my hand!
His small size and fragility made it tricky to find the right balance between holding him firmly and not ‘doing a Lennie’. And it also made it difficult to have a good look at him. How were we to determine his condition? Come to think of it, we didn’t even know what kind of bird he was! He had a long beak and that’s about all I could determine! I used google lens.
A short-toed treecreeper! And that explains how this magnificent little creature is able to hold on to smooth plastic window frames!
We called the wildlife centre for advice (and to call in the blue pigeon), and it was quite simple. We were to set the rescue box down, open the lid and see if the treecreeper wanted to fly out. If he did, then great! If not, or if he tried but failed, we were to bring him in.
I was worried about setting him free in the local area because it was near a very busy main road, and the apartment itself – though set in some greenery – was mostly surrounded by concrete carparks. The advice was not to worry as the treecreeper had come from that area so should be OK to go back to it!
We looked around the back of the block, but decided there was too much concrete. At the side of the carpark in front were some trees which looked like a much better spot to release our friend, but I spotted bird boxes on many of the tree trunks. What if the birds using them where carnivores and would attack the small treecreeper?
Thankfully I found a group of trees with undergrowth nearby that seemed like the safest location to offer freedom. Armed with nets at the ready in case he had an unsuccessful flight, we set the box down and opened the lid.
For a second or 2 there was no motion, and then…a flutter and he was free!
Wildlife Rescue Centre
We brought the pigeon to the wildlife centre where he’d have treatment. It seemed a little strange being there as an ex-animal carer, possibly stranger that I had sort of inside knowledge of where we were bringing him.
Unfortunately I (still) don’t know about how / when animals are retrieved from the cupboards, or how they are checked (despite my best efforts) but I know that the after-care they receive is good! 🙂
