Fledglings Rescued from Brighton Lightwell

East Sussex WRAS has been helping its neighbouring rescue organisations in Brighton & Hove recently due to how busy they have been.

On Monday 19th July rescuers attended a call where a fledgling gull had fallen into a lightwell. The space was too narrow and there was no way the bird could escape.

Rescuers from East Sussex Wildlife Rescue & Ambulance Service (WRAS) attended due to the very long rescue pole carried on their ambulances.

The owner of one of the properties on Edward Street Brighton, who called WRAS, noticed the gull from a sky light in their roof. But there was not easy access to where the bird was.

Once on site Senior Rescue Co-ordinator Trevor Weeks MBE was show up to the sky light. "This was a strange rescue as normally we are show to the basement to reach bird and animals in lightwells, but for this one we had to work from the roof down" Trevor explained.

"It was quite a drop roughly two floors down. So I knew I was going to need our long poles and a large net head to reach the bird and bring him back up to the roof" added Trevor.

WRAS has several four section telescopic rescue poles which can reach up to three floor in height. A large net head was used to ensure the gull could be lifted up without the risk of the bird jumping out and falling again.

"As usual like most rescues we deal with the casualty doesn't realise we are trying to help and they will do whatever they can to get away from us. This can get quite frustrating at times as we are only trying to help them" said Trevor.

After a couple of attempt to net the gull Trevor was successful and slowly started to lift the bird up the wall to the roof. Manoeuvring these long poles is not easy, but eventually the bird was at roof level and Trevor was able to remove the fledgling from the net and release him back onto the roof.

There was a sibling already on the roof and the rescued gull was reunited with him.

The following day (Tuesday 20th July) WRAS received a second call to say that the previous days gull had fledged but the sibling had now fallen into the basement, so Trevor attended on site again to repeat the procedure. Luckily both gulls have now fledged.

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