My Inept Rescue

[Edwina's Secretary]

Last Saturday I was weeding the garden, along with my totally useless helper Edwina. The birds seemed unusally chatty. Finally I realized that one bird was on the roof peeping her head off and it sounded like intense peeping coming from the exterior basement stairwell. I couldn't see anything at first but kept hearing the frantic peeping. Finally I saw the baby bird. (Edwina was staring intently at the last spot where she saw the elusive chipmunk and missing all of this.)
The baby bird could fly a little bit -- up one step and back down, but that was it. I decided to put some bird seed down for him.
Sunday morning he was still there and the bird seed was untouched. My husband suggested bringing the bird out of the stairwell where momma bird could help. (These are not cats, I told him. The momma isn't going to carry it back to the nest in her mouth!) I had no better ideas and a flight to catch. SO I put on a pair of gloves and carried the bird up the stairs. It kept flying out of my hands back down the stairs. At one point it hid behind a garden pot on one stair.
I put the baby up on a brick wall (which it promptly flew off to the ground.)
I returned to put things on the stairs back in place and forgot that a casement window was open, rose up and clunked my head which began to bleed -- no time for this!
So there I was -- the bird was missing in the bushes, my head was bleeding and hurt like @#$% and I had to get cleaned up and off to the airport.
Today is the first day since that I have been able to turn my neck. I think I'd best leave the rescuing to the far more coodinated and capable!

[Karen]

We recently had a baby bird rescue at the office where I work, and when we called the Audubon Society, they said to make it a fake nest and put it as near its own nest as you can find. Baby birds don't eat seed, btw, and they said NOT to give it food, just water, so it would cry out when it was hungry, and the mama bird would hear it and come and feed it.

[Edwina's Secretary]

Did they say anything about..."the momma won't take care of it if it has been touched by human hands?" So many people have told me this....

[moosmom]

One time when I was a volunteer firefighter, we were hanging around the firehouse. There was a baby bird that fell out of our quite tall pine tree. The nest was near the top. I ended up putting rubber gloves on before picking the baby bird up. I climbed a ladder and put the baby back in the nest. No human scent, back home and happy. The End.

It is true that once they sense a human touching their young, they will throw it out of the nest.

[AvaJoy]

Originally posted by Edwina's Secretary
Did they say anything about..."the momma won't take care of it if it has been touched by human hands?" So many people have told me this....

I am under the impression that this a fallacy, but don't hold me to it . . . I went so far as to drive 2 baby goldfinches that I thought to be abandoned by their Mum to the nearest (50 miles away!:rolleyes) wildlife sanctuary, and was told they did not survive when I followed up with a phone call after a day or so.

If you ever find a baby bird that seems lost or distressed, I have since learned that it is best to just keep a watchful eye out for a few hours . . . sometimes the Mum is just out looking for food and will eventually return. If you feel like the baby is truly forsaken, feeding cat food with a tooth pick can keep it's energy level up.