If you find a BABY BIRD

[Bec on the ball]

Have just read all these posts and am now a little unsure what to do.

Last night my cat brought in a baby bird, I made it a nest popped nest on a hot water bottle, gave a drink of water drop by drop from a syringe and hoped it would still be alive in the morning. Amazingly it was!

This morning cat brings in another baby bird which I duly pop in with the other, they are definitely siblings. My husband releases the cat and follows it to hope to find the nest...hey presto a couple of robins are going mad on the path outside.

So we lock the cat in the house and return the robins to the parents who start feeding them immediately...fab job done.

But the silly babies keep coming out of the verge where I've put them and sitting right in the middle of the footpath (a well used dog walking/cat stalking route)

So do I leave well alone? Do I take them to the vet because of the cat? Do I try to move them deeper into the underbrush?


Help, I need advise

Thanks Becky

[Farplace]

Congrats for doing the right thing by these baby birds. best thing to do now is to leave them alone. They are back with their parents and are being fed. If possible, keep your cat indoors, especially during the day.

[Bec on the ball]

Thanks for that, we are keeping an eye out and the cat is having supervised wee breaks.

Becky

[brittonc]

Great advice...though there might be times you have to take in a baby bird, even for a short time before you can give it to a professional. I have rehabilitated a couple of birds in the past with the help and advice from the RSPB. I've now got a baby sparrow which I'm looking after until tomorrow when I'm taking it to a wildlife rescue centre. What may be useful are some guidelines and advice of what to do and what not to do in case of circumstances like this. The previous advice to leave birds unless absolutely necessary is first and foremost but sometimes you have to intervene.

Things like never force a syringe into a birds mouth to feed or give water, make sure they are given the right food etc. An 'in case of emergency' list maybe. Just a thought.

[cath3637]

Thanks for all the great advice already posted on this thread. Sorry about the quality of my photo but I took it on my mobile phone!
This morning I found this wood pigeon chick in the garden, it seems very bright and active but unable to fly yet (I assume it's fallen out of the nest). I'm unsure where its nest is - the bird seems to have wandered around the garden a bit - but it's now hiding at the bottom of the bay tree having tried unsuccessfully to climb up the fence to get to its mum (or dad). The parent is still around and is popping in and out of the garden.
Having read the previous advice I thought the best thing to do would be to wedge a box into the tree and put the chick in it to keep it off the ground as there are cats who frequent the garden - however when I went to pick the chick up it got stroppy and stressed so I've backed off for now. I've read elsewhere that pigeon chicks are particularly susceptible to stress and I don't want to frighten it to death, but on the other hand I don't want it to end up as kitty's lunch! Any advice?

[forasher]

Great idea, it's really helphul,thanks!

[fairplay]

Last week and this week I shall/have been doing the final 2 weeks of monitoring a re-introduced Silver Studded Blue colony.

I inadvertently disturbed a very late nesting nightjar (male) last Tuesday which flew off with the classic 'broken wing' ploy. This exposed 2 very obvious whitish eggs, which clearly stood out against the darker coloured stained sandy soil.
Within a minute I had my camera out , took 3 photos, and was gone before any corvids appeared on the skyline.

I shall be returning tomorrow with my binoculars to try to see if the eggs have hatched, but if they do, it is going to be touch and go if they are able to grow quickly enough to get to Africa in time.

Neil.

[fairplay]

A week later, and the eggs still not hatched, but this time it was the female sitting on the eggs.
On my next visit I will have a BTO ringer with me as it will be very important to know if these late chicks can survive to make it to Africa.

Neil.

[SA_BEE]

I came home on Thursday evening and my family had found a baby wood pigeon in our drive way .They have been nesting on the side of the Saterlight dish. They thought it had fallen out the nest . A week prior to this we had found another chick only a couple of days old which had also fallen out, but did not survive.
My husband has being feeding the bird with a seed mix he went to buy, after reading this post, I realised we have made a big mistake.
Can we try put the bird back where we found it. will the parents still come back to find it ?

[Dogghound]

Originally Posted by SA_BEE

Can we try put the bird back where we found it. will the parents still come back to find it ?

No, you will have to either keep feeding it, or hand it into an animal rescue.