When we originally set up the rescue in 2020, the intention genuinely was to rescue all wild birds.

One of my closest dearest friends of over 20 years was an extremely wealthy man. He believed enormously in what I wanted to create and, importantly, he had the financial means to make it happen.

This wasn’t a pipe dream or a vague “wouldn’t it be lovely one day” idea.

Plans were underway for him to finance around 26 acres of land here in Dorset, where we could build a large, properly equipped wild bird rescue hospital with the space and facilities for waterfowl, larger birds and many of the species we simply cannot accommodate where we are today.

Wild Bird Rescue Dorset was created and registered with that future in mind.

Then, completely unexpectedly, my dear beloved friend suddenly dropped dead.

Everything changed overnight.

Following his death, a family member 600 miles away (someone he had never had a particularly good relationship with, but who also happened to be a solicitor) challenged his state of mind and denied all knowledge of the plans he had put in place.

Ultimately, the funding we had been relying upon to create the rescue never came to us. Not even a single penny was shared to honour his memory.

The land disappeared. The facilities disappeared. And almost overnight, the future we’d been building towards disappeared with them.

But Wild Bird Rescue Dorset already existed…. So we carried on with what we had.

We still rent our home. We still work jobs alongside running the rescue. We don’t have lakes, acres of land or specialist waterfowl facilities. We’ve simply built the very best rescue we can within the space and resources and permission available to us.

And somewhere along the way, we found our speciality.

Today we are garden bird specialists, predominantly caring for corvids, songbirds, passerines, woodpeckers, pigeons and doves. This year alone (August 2026) we’ve already taken in more than 700 birds, so what started as a rather different dream has certainly become something in its own right.

When we say we can’t take webbed-footed birds, raptors or certain other species, it isn’t because there’s “always an excuse”. It’s because responsible wildlife rehabilitation means knowing your limitations.

Taking in any animal when you don’t have the appropriate facilities, environment or expertise isn’t helping it. Sometimes the responsible answer simply has to be no and we will always pass on details of other rescues who can.

I can’t change the history behind our name Wild Bird Rescue Dorset, and truthfully, I don’t want to. It represents where we started, the extraordinary rescue that was once planned and a very dear friend who believed in it enough to want to make that dream possible.

So yes, there really is quite a story behind our name.

And sometimes what looks like an “excuse” from the outside of why we are unable to accommodate all wild birds here is actually over 20 years of a close friendship, a dream that disappeared overnight, and a little rescue that simply picked itself up and carried on doing the best we can with what we have.

Thank you,
Sandy
Founder