Serena Stevens, 53, is the founder of Oak And Furrows, a wildlife rescue centre at Blakehill Nature Reserve near Cricklade, which has launched a £30,000 Christmas appeal for a new rehabilitation area. Serena and her husband have five children

HAD it not been for a bird taking a wrong turning many years ago, Oak And Furrows might never have come to be.

“A starling came and got trapped in the brickwork,” said Serena Stevens.

“We took the brickwork out to rescue it and people got to hear about what had happened.”

Soon members of the public were bringing sick and injured animals to the family home in Cirencester, which Serena and her daughter, Millie, would look after.

Millie, who had cystic fibrosis, died aged eight, and Serena decided to carry on working with animals in her memory. The centre was founded in 1994 and became a charity in 2006.

Serena, who is originally from Windsor, has always been an animal lover.

“I was brought up by my grandmother, who loved animals and birds, in a cottage near Northleach," she said.

"I would say that my family were all very very very much animal and bird people. I was brought up with jackdaws and rooks. We were always saving baby birds.”

Some of the creatures Serena was brought up around were sick and injured, and were brought to Serena’s grandmother by members of the public who found them.

Others were pets whose owners could no longer look after them.

Serena learned how to look after animals – and that not all can or should be saved if their lives would be miserable afterwards.

“I really do believe in quality of life, not quantity. To me, if a bird has wings it must be able to fly rather than being stuck in a cage for 25 years," she said.

“If somebody brings us a budgie, that budgie will be rehomed with somebody who has an aviary of them, not with somebody who’ll just put it in a cage on a table.”

Serena’s childhood ambitions were to be a vet, a nurse or to look after children. She readily admits to not having been especially academic.

“I left school at an early age, got married young and started having children. I ended up with a big family and a wildlife centre!”

Oak and Furrows takes in about 3,000 animals and birds a year and fields 7,000 telephone calls from the public.

Each patient has its own story, and those range from the poignant to the amusing.

“There have been a lot of funny moments. Somebody rang once from quite far away, the other side of Oxfordshire, about two baby badgers. The man wanted me to come and meet him half way,” Serena said.

Serena couldn’t understand how the man could have found two baby badgers as any badgers born during that year’s breeding season would have been larger, but she still went to meet the caller.

“All the way there I was thinking it couldn’t be badgers, but I couldn’t think for the life of me what else would be black and white.

“Then, when I met him I could hear miaowing. They were two black and white cats,” she said.

Serena ended up hand rearing the animals, and they were later placed with new owners.

Then there was Rosie the deer.

“She was a newborn, found with her mum who was dead. She must have died giving birth," said Serena.

“It was so hard to hand rear her – she wouldn’t take the bottle.”

It was only when the tiny animal discovered a fondness for rose petals that she acquired a new lease on life and her name. She eventually grew big enough to be placed with other roe deer.

Some of the stories are anything but happy, and show the human race in its worst light. Serena is incensed by wanton cruelty.

She has encountered creatures which have been shot with guns and crossbows for no other reason than that it was somebody’s idea of fun.

Other horrors have included a group of teenagers kicking a hedgehog as if it were a football, and a car full of thugs driving up and down a road as a duck and her brood tried to cross.

The ducklings died one by one and eventually the mother was also struck.

Sometimes acts of cruelty are committed not through malice but because of ignorance.

Serena remembers seeing a jackdaw which had been found by somebody who attempted to feed it.

When the bird wouldn’t eat, the member of the public brought it to the wildlife centre.

Serena discovered it had a neck injury and should have been euthanised.

Often, well-meaning people looking after an animal will feed it the wrong food, or too much of the right food, or keep it for too long.

“These creatures are from the wild and they need to be put back in the wild – and in tip top condition, not imprinted on humans," she said. “If you’re going to do a job, it should be done as best it can be done.

“Wildlife belongs in the wild – and we’re at the end of the phone for advice.”

Oak and Furrows’ website is at www.oandf.co.uk and can also be contacted on 01793 751412.