For the past 8 weeks, the Helpline has been manic during the evening and weekend hours; yet when there is a sporting event being shown on the TV ... the phone falls remarkably quiet!

Currently it is the Euro's football matches in play (Well-Done to England this evening!), and soon after it will be the Wimbledon tennis matches.

The reason our lines are so busy at these times, is due to local rescues being unable to staff their own phones out of hours, so whilst they can field their local queries during the weekdays, it is the evenings and weekends when we literally do get calls from all over the country, and on occasion from abroad too - such is the scope of the Internet searches these days.

May, June and July are the three busiest months of the year for Helpline enquiries; when the baby birds first leave their nests, and unbeknown to a large number of people; young birds often don't take to the skies straight away, and may spend a number of days or even weeks (depending on the species), flightless on the floor until they have developed enough to take to the skies.

One example of this is the waterfowl families, whose young will be taken to the relative safety of a nearby waterway - such as with the Canada Goose family in this photo. Other birds such as blackbirds, thrushes, wrens and robins will take upto 5 days to fly. Sparrows and starlings fare better and are usually in the air in 1-3 days. The Corvid families are usually flying high in 5-8 days.

Nigel