If you find an injured baby bird

Mockingbird

Mockingbirds

If you find a baby bird that is uninjured and you can locate its nest, please put it back. The parents will take care of it. It's a myth that birds will be put off by human odor transferred to their young. If a baby or fledgling bird is injured or in danger, do rescue it. Place songbirds in a small box lined with tissues and do not offer food or water. Then call us at 966-9005.

Fledgling Birds

When baby birds leave the nest they are called fledglings. For the first day or two after they leave the nest, young birds are not skilled at flying. They manage to fly downwards easily enough, but flying back up to the safety of a perch in a hedge is much more difficult for them to master. Fledglings are very vulnerable at this stage in their lives. They cannot defend themselves and are unable to escape easily, and so they are easy targets for predators.

The parent birds continue to feed their young for a week or two when they leave the nest, and will also try to defend them. You will often hear contact calls between the young bird and its parents.

Fledglings give us the impression that they have been lost and abandoned, and people are tempted to pick them up. But if you watch carefully, you will see that the parents really do know where their young are, and continue to bring food to them regularly. All you need to do to help is to make sure you (and your neighbors) keep your cats indoors during the day.

It may seem to be a dangerous time for these young birds, but it is all part of nature's course, and we should leave them to take their chance, knowing that their parents will bring them the food that they need.

When fledgling crows leave the nest they are almost full-size but need to hop around on the ground and exercise their wings usually for 48 hours before they take their first flight. Many people spot these fledglings and assume they are injured adults. The parents will continue to feed the young crows while they are on the ground and will protect them vigorously. If you spot a young crow on the ground, keep it under surveillance to ensure its parents are in the vicinity, and keep cats away from it.

If a crow is injured or in imminent danger, you can use a towel to toss over it, scoop it up, and place it in a box. You may want to approach under an umbrella if parents are nearby they are known for their intimidating dives.
Then call us at 966-9005.

Prevention Reduces Peril for Baby Birds

Tree and shrub trimming is a task better suited for winter before nesting has commenced. Limiting cats' access to the outdoors (especially in the morning and evening hours when birds are most active) can help.