Earlier today I came home from having coffee with a friend (and her husband??????? more on this another time) to find an apparently half-dead injured baby bird that had fallen out of its nest and was now flopping weakly/grossly on the pavers in front of my door!!!!
And now, a mere seven hours later, I am basically an expert on normal, healthy, uninjured, not-any-percentage-dead fledglings and all the things you SHOULD NOT do (return them to the nest, give them food/water, call a wildlife rescue unnecessarily); and now the half-dead injured baby bird is hopping around like a healthy uninjured fluffy wind-up toy, having made an INCREDIBLE amount of progress in just a few hours; and its parents are constantly nearby, periodically feeding it and also visiting its siblings in a nest tucked in next to the security camera above our door!!! So I am basically this baby bird’s godmother, and I expect to soon be godmother to several more “half-dead injured baby birds that have fallen out of the nest”! But also: should the baby bird’s parents perhaps build a nest that is NOT LOCATED OVER HARD AND UNFORGIVING PAVERS??? MAYBE!!!!
I can’t adequately express how exciting and stressful this whole thing has been. We kept thinking of trying things and then discovering our instincts were UTTERLY WRONG. First we looked into returning it to its nest: WRONG. (It had feathers, which means it did not “fall” so much as “launch normally.” Returning it to its nest would be like gently taking a 23-year-old human out of their first grown-up apartment and tucking them back into their childhood bedroom and saying “There, there: you’re safe now!” Not fatal, but counterproductive—and in the case of a baby bird, it would have to repeat the “fall” out of the nest, which is presumably unpleasant and potentially damaging.) Then we thought we needed to call a wildlife rescue: WRONG. (The baby bird was behaving normally, as were its attentive parents.) Then we thought we would give it a dish of water: WRONG. (Feeding/watering birds, if you don’t know what you’re doing, can be very, very wrong, and can result in bird death.) Then we thought we would put a light-colored towel onto the pavers, to give it a cooler surface: WRONG. (They can get tangled in the terrycloth fibers.) Then we thought we could provide it some SHADE, at least, with an umbrella or something: WRONG. (This can hide the baby bird from its doting parents.) Then we thought we would scoop it gently into the very-nearby grass: RIGHT, gah, finally, a good idea!! Making sure we see bird-parents nearby: RIGHT, yes, right! Leaving it the hell alone and staying away: RIGHT! Watching out the window obsessively and worrying about it for hours: neither right nor wrong, fortunately!
I think it’s ok to call and ask the experts. My local wildlife bird rescue was incredibly kind when a juvenile crow chose my yard as it’s first apartment. I waited almost a week before calling and was concerned something was wrong. (It *still* wasn’t flying.) They asked me to send video and then told me he was just a slow learner. But, they were clear they much preferred getting the phone call to having people just guess about what to do.
Of course it’s okay! I meant that in our case, we thought there was a Wildlife!!Emergency!! and instead it took one (1) minute of online searching to realize we did not.
I had a crow! In the yard with the idiot dogs! Fortunately it did fly within an hour or two and the parents were around BUT keeping the dogs at bay, getting them into the house initially, was nerve-wracking to say the least. Watching the whole drama unfold was fascinating once imminent death was removed from the equation. (And I called someone who was like, yeah, it’s fledging. It’s fine. Keep the dogs away )
This account was RIVETING! I am so glad the bird survived the float to your pavement and that you were able to move it to a grassy spot. I would also be unable to look away!
I am very glad this seems to be moving in the direction of a happy ending.
About a year ago workers who were reconstructing our porch roof found a whole nest of starling babies and they had to move it as they were taking the roof apart. The parents came to the nest in the new location for a while but then they stopped and all the babies died over the course of a few days. It was agonizing to watch. I did call wildlife rehabilatators but they wouldn’t take them because starlings aren’t native to MD.
Starlings and house sparrows are the two birds you can mess with. Both are non-native and invasive and not protected species. If it had been another bird it would be illegal to move the nest. (Not that that stops anyone from moving the nest of other birds but there can be trouble if the nest movers get caught.
This is indeed exciting and I appreciate your research so that if it ever happens here I will already have an idea of what not to do. All of our best to the fledglings and their parents.
“…like gently taking a 23-year-old human out of their first grown-up apartment and tucking them back into their childhood bedroom and saying “There, there: you’re safe now!” ” Oddly, this has kind of just happened to us, except said human is 27 years old. It’s supposed to be only for a couple of weeks while she moves to a new job (her first actual adulting job; grad school was not the same) in another state. I am at once relieved she is here, and also see that we are already clashing, and if she stays here a long time we would be pushing her out of the nest again. But I feel (perhaps wrongly) she is the mostly likely of our progeny to fall on to the metaphorical pavers as she tries to spread her wings. I can’t write about this on my own blog so once again you have provided writing refuge for needy folks here. Thank you.
Bringing the HUSBAND on a friend date!!!! My eyes are extremely wide right now because WHAT?!?!
Glad the baby bird is fine! What kind of bird are they?
Yes – we’ll need more on the husband at the friend date!
So glad the bird is okay. What a well-written account!
We’ve had a couple of stunned birds who have flown into a window (yes – we know about the decals on windows etc) and they always look terrible and then a couple of quiet hours in an open shoebox in a protected area outside and miraculously they’re fine again. I’ve called our local wildlife rehab place and this is what they’ve recommended in these situations with adult birds.
I saw the title Baby Bird and braced myself for a sad story. Instead, I am giddy (and better informed)! Thank you, Swistle!
Um…and the husband? More details please. I’m imagining all kinds of scenarios from a reasonable explanation (the other car is in the garage and we’re both running errands) to weirdly cringe (we’ve been married so long we forgot how to be individuals) to scandalous (husband had an O Fans issue so he cannot be at home alone) to age appropriate (the colonoscopy ran longer than expected and well, you know, he’s famished). Why am I hoping for awkward or shocking?