Help us save the birds!

We’re Jo and Neil. We've been rescuing and rehabilitating wild birds for 28 years.

Back in 1997 a herring gull landed outside our home with a fishing hook stuck in his beak. We caught him and took him to the vet: the hook was removed and we released him. He returned the next day - and kept on coming. Later that summer, he brought 3 fine herring gull chicks to us and has continued to do so every summer.

If we hadn't helped him, he and the many subsequent generations of chicks would not have made it.

Over the years we found other sick and injured birds and did our best to help them - swans, cormorants, greater black-backed gulls, corvids, etc. - with fishing hooks and fishing wire stuck on or in them, air-rifle injuries, road traffic accidents, dog and cat attacks, weather-related injuries, sickness and starvation.

It became clear that there isn't a lot of help available for sick or injured wild birds in many parts of Devon. Vets simply aren't set up to take in and care for the number of wild birds that need help.

In recent years, more and more people and vet practices have heard about us and we've seen a big increase in requests for assistance. So we set up a much bigger bird-care facility by converting stables into aviaries in the winter of 2024.

It's lucky that we did! In 2025 the number of birds we are helping has increased more than 10 fold. With up to 25 requests for help each day, our new aviaries filled up quickly and we’ve added 10 more aviary enclosures so far this year.

Until a few weeks ago it was just the two of us doing pretty much everything - rescues, feeding, cleaning, vet trips, etc. - and we met all the costs ourselves.

Many people have said that they wanted to help us financially and in the past we used to ask people to donate to other wildlife charities instead, but now our food bill alone is running at about £90 a day we would be very grateful for any donations.

We’ve also decided it's time to establish a "proper" organisation - we're calling it South Devon Bird Rescue. We're not a registered charity yet - but that's the plan. In the meantime, people are still asking if they can donate to our cause, but we didn’t have a way for them to do it, which is why we set up this GoFundMe page.

We're raising funds to help cover costs like food, vet bills (avian or bird veterinary care frequently involves trips to a specialist practice in Wiltshire), more aviaries and transport costs, especially over the very busy summer period while the birds are having chicks.

We're currently looking after about 300 birds - including 150 baby gulls, pigeons, jays, jackdaws, magpies, sparrows, crows, rooks, ducks and more. When they're well enough, we release them back to the wild.

Any birds we take in who are not physically well enough to be released have a sanctuary/home for life with us. Our oldest resident is a female herring gull who was rescued from a city-centre carpark with a wing injury. After a trip to the specialist avian vet in Swindon, she’s now been with us for 15 years.

Please give what you can!