Uplifting news: ‘Miracle’ 1lb baby goes home and rare white squirrel spotted
A round-up of Thursday’s feel-good stories.
A baby who weighed just over a pound when she was born in December has gone home.
Meanwhile, in Scotland a rare white squirrel has been spotted scavenging for nuts in a garden.
These are some of the more uplifting stories from around the country you might have missed.
– Baby born weighing just over 1lb goes home
Mother Tayla Menear, 26, gave birth to Lilly at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital on December 9 last year, 22 weeks into her pregnancy.
Baby Lilly was allowed to leave the ward on Tuesday after four months of round-the-clock care, having grown to 5lb 8oz (2.5kg)
– Rare white squirrel spotted in garden
Chris Eddington managed to capture images of the animal – which has a genetic condition called leucism that affects pigmentation – after he spotted it while having breakfast at his home in Dunkeld.
The sighting has been reported to Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels, a partnership project led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, which monitors squirrel populations across Scotland.
Ann-Marie MacMaster, the project’s conservation officer for Tayside, said: “Chris’s pictures are some of the best images we’ve seen of a leucistic red squirrel.”
– Wallaby makes a run for it
Police have captured a wallaby that escaped from a zoo and travelled almost six miles into a nearby town.
Cambridgeshire Police said the marsupial, which escaped from Johnsons of Old Hurst, a farm and zoo park near Huntingdon, was spotted in St Ives by a runner who initially thought it was a kangaroo.
It tried to play fight with an officer, who was unharmed, then it was “caught after taking a break in a nearby garden” on Thursday evening, the force said.
– New Banksy artwork ‘a morale boost’, say hospital staff
The piece, entitled Game Changer, is now on view to staff and patients on Level C of Southampton General Hospital.
It shows a boy dressed in dungarees playing with a nurse superhero toy, with figures of Batman and Spider-Man in a wastepaper basket next to him on the floor.
Paula Head, chief executive of University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, told the PA news agency: “All the staff have described this painting and the impact it’s had on the hospital as joyous, it has made a huge difference to the morale of the hospital and the people who are working in here.”