Zoologist, writer, TV presenter – Dr Sasha Norris has had a glittering career in academia and the media since she graduated from the University of Bristol more than 30 years ago. Yet today she’s kneeling in a scrubby field on the edge of Hereford, lifting a buzzard gently out of a swaddling towel – and letting it go.
The buzzard flies powerfully towards the nearest tall tree and settles on a mid-level branch. Sasha lifts her hands above her head in exultation, then gazes in pride at the liberated bird as if admiring a painting she’s just finished.
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“Yes, yes, yes – oh my God, that was amazing,” she exclaims. “I tried him once before when I thought he was ready, but he wouldn’t fly – he obviously needed a bit more time to build up his strength.”
Having long since departed the dreaming spires of Oxford, where she worked in the world-renowned Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Sasha runs Herefordshire Wildlife Rescue, a small rescue and rehabilitation centre she founded in an idyllic location overlooking Bodenham Lake north of Hereford.
It’s also Sasha’s home, where she lives with her teenage son and a diverse, ever-changing group of volunteers from the UK and Europe. The centre takes in everything from the cutest fox cubs on the planet to shifty-looking herring gulls that patrol their enclosure like teenagers leaving the pub in a small market town at closing time on Friday night, intent on a quick fight before heading home.
Some of these animals will never be released – the mute swan, for example, that had to have its wing amputated after it lost out in a collision with a vehicle, and the jackdaw that was hand-reared in a bathroom in Llandrindod Wells and is now too tame to survive life in the wild.
“He won’t tolerate any other birds in there,” says Sasha. “He loves Jacqui but not me, because I catch him and check his weight. He thinks he’s a person – he gives her things.”
Sasha’s referring to Jacqui Mayne, her operational partner in grime – because, make no mistake, rescuing and rehabilitating wild animals is no Glyndebourne picnic.
“We’re just cleaners,” Sasha tells me at one point. “Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. We powerwash and we shovel – rabbit poo, deer poo, donkey poo. If it’s just one of us here doing the animals, it’s about five hours of solid work.” And that’s every day.
“Suboptimal“ natural habitats
Sasha estimates that the centre receives more than 1,000 calls every year about wild animals that may need rescuing. Vehicle collisions are major reasons why creatures might require attention, but other common problems include deer getting caught in fences and strimmer injuries to hedgehogs. Netting and fishing lines are perennial issues, too.
There are also plenty of cases of individuals that simply appear ill, hungry or dehydrated. That, says Sasha, is probably because they’re living in suboptimal habitats that aren’t providing them with the food or shelter they need.
“I asked [University of Oxford conservation biologist] David Macdonald, and he told me that most wild animals die of starvation,“ Sasha says.
Of those 1,000-plus calls received each year, perhaps three-quarters result in Sasha or one of her many volunteers having to take in injured or poorly animals. Not all of those calls do result in a new guest.
She recalls one conversation with a woman who asked if she could collect “a massive bird” that was loitering outside her house. It turned out to be a juvenile lesser black-backed gull.
“I had to say to this woman: ‘I’m not being funny, but we’re not pest control’!” Sasha recalls. “She replied: ‘I’ve got 15 eight-year-olds coming for a party later, and it’s s**t all over my driveway’.”
Sasha explained to the caller that the young bird was still being cared for by its parents, which stay together for life, adding that it would probably be gone in a couple of days. This was all, of course, news to the woman.
“That is the magic of this work,” Sasha says. If an animal is very badly injured – that one-winged swan, for example, or the first bird she ever took in, a sparrowhawk with a broken wing – then it will need professional veterinary attention.
The captivity debate
Over more than a decade and a half, Sasha has built up close relationships with two vet practices that carry out the medical work for free. About half of the animals taken in are released back into the wild at some point; very few are euthanised.
During my day at the centre, this is an issue that we return to time and again. Sasha believes very strongly that it is acceptable to keep some wild animals in captivity – indeed, that she almost has a duty to do so.
She’s toying with the idea of applying for a licence to open the centre to the paying public – not for the money it would bring in but because it would provide a chance to use these creatures to educate people about native British species.
The general public’s ignorance of our own wildlife astonishes Sasha. Zoology students who visit would know the difference between a lion and a cougar, but they can’t tell a jackdaw from a crow or even a blackbird.
“We do provide homes for disabled wildlife,” she says. “Some people are talking about making it illegal, but I think the opposite should happen. All of our zoos should house our own wildlife: instead of seeing a tiger or a macaw, you should see a raven.”
Permanent residents
Speaking of ravens, Herefordshire Wildlife Rescue has two that are permanent inmates. One, Jem, has an issue with feather-pecking – a habit that usually starts out of boredom and is hard to break – while the other, Mozart, had a broken wing that mended in the wrong place.
Mozart, who was previously on his own at the centre, used to imitate sounds he heard in the garden. “It was unbelievable – recreating every delicate sound,” Sasha remembers with wonder.
“He copied the cats’ miaows and the geese – honk, honk, honk. He mimicked my old Dobermann before he died. He did a poodle and the neighbour’s spaniel.”
Then, when Jem arrived, the morning cacophony suddenly disappeared. “When he opened his mouth again, he spoke raven. It was almost sad.”
A hopeful future
Though Sasha has volunteers to help with the daily grind (she gathered five of them for the day of our visit), everything really depends on her and Jacqui. Neither of them takes a salary for their countless hours of toil and trouble. Both have other incomes (Jacqui owns a company with her husband, Sasha has rental properties) but they also beg and borrow services and gear from anyone who is prepared to help.
“I’m quite frugal,” Sasha adds. “I don’t drink, and I don’t go out very often. Most evenings I’m out here until 10pm, checking on the animals.”
Despite the long hours and unglamorous lifestyle, Sasha also acknowledges how privileged she is
to live here, immersed in nature. Our day is peppered with the calls of chiffchaffs, blackbirds and thrushes.
In the afternoon, while exploring a floodplain field she owns close to the River Lugg, we chance upon a small herd of fallow deer as, almost simultaneously, a red kite soars into view.
But perhaps the greatest privilege of all is to be able to give the wild animals she loves so fiercely the chance to be free again. She recalls her very first patient, the sparrowhawk, with its “starey” eyes that wanted nothing to do with her or indeed any human.
“After about three weeks, it got out while I was cleaning out the enclosure, and it flew around and around the room. I opened the door and it flew out and down the garden path.” She never saw it again, but that wasn’t the point. “That was the biggest high you could imagine – completely fixing this broken thing,” she says.
I dwell on this as we watch the buzzard Sasha has just released. It’s sitting in the tree, fluffing up its feathers (“rousing”, apparently), taking stock of this new environment. It’s surely impossible to remain unmoved by the sight of an animal that’s been given a second chance. In this age of nature emergency and climate crisis, it sometimes feels as if hope is a commodity in short supply – but this buzzard, for me, is going some way to filling that void.
