A patrol is not complicated. Two people, a torch pointed at the ground, a cardboard box and one assigned stretch of coast road. You walk it slowly, twice, between nightfall and midnight. Most nights you find nothing. Some nights you find four birds in the same hundred metres, all under the same streetlight.

A grounded fledgling cannot take off again from flat ground. It needs height and wind, and it has neither on asphalt. Left there, it is hit by a car, taken by a cat, or still sitting in the same spot at sunrise when the heat starts. Picked up, it has a very good chance.

What we do with the bird

It goes into a ventilated box, in the dark, with nothing to look at and nobody talking to it. Stress kills more of them than injuries do. The box goes to the care centre the same night, or first thing in the morning if the centre is closed. There it is weighed, checked for fractures and burns, and rehydrated.

Birds in good condition are released within forty eight hours, from a cliff, at first light, facing the sea. The rest stay a week or two. Around nine out of ten of the birds we pick up leave again on their own wings.

Who can do it

Anyone who can walk for two hours after dark and stay calm around a frightened animal. No background in biology, no equipment of your own, no minimum commitment. You are paired with someone experienced for your first three patrols.

1,180

birds picked up since we started

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