Rescued a young woodpigeon this evening

werdnal · #1 (**permalink**) 23-09-2009, 06:51 PM

Well I don't know - you put in a wildlife pond to help wildlife, then end up drowning it?

Happened to glance out of the kitchen window when we sat down for tea and something moving in our pond caught my eye. Suddenly realised it was a bird flapping around in the water. Hubby and I rushed out, and found a young woodpigeon on the verge of drowning. One of his parents was in the tree above, and flew off as soon as we appeared. Managed to fish out a poor very wet squeaker. At first he couldn't even stand up he was so cold - don't know how long he'd been in there. Hubby keeps pigeons anyway, so we put him in our "sick bird" box, wrapped in some hay, and left him to recover. We thought the shock might have been too much for him, but within an hour he had warmed up and dried off a bit, and was up wandering around the box and flapping at us in defence when we went near.

Not sure how old he is but he is not feeding himself yet or flying, although he is almost fully feathered. Hubby climbed up the sycamore tree where we think they are nesting, but couldn't get high enough to find the nest. Besides, he'd likely fall out again if we put him back!

I have raised babies before, so back to hand-feeding for a few weeks I guess. So lucky we saw him as he was so weak he wouldn't have lasted much longer!

valleyforge · #2 (**permalink**) 23-09-2009, 10:25 PM

Hi werndal,

Good story ... but I think it would be better all round if in the morning after keeping the squeaker warm and safe all night, you tried to get the bird into a safe location where the parent bird can resume feeding it.

Perhaps a substitute 'nest' could be fabricated and fixed to the tree at an appropriate height, although I agree that at the squeaker stage he/she might not stay put.

Pigeons as I'm sure you are aware feed their offspring with a nutrient rich crop 'milk' ... and although you can provide an artificial substitute ... and I have no reason to believe you are not capable of doing so ... it will not provide exactly the balance of nutrients and more importantly the immunological components of the natural parental feed.

Again, as I'm sure you are aware, the parents will only feed the offspring a couple of times per day (the crop milk is that rich), but a substitute feed would need to be administered much more regularly. If the parent doesn't start feeding the displaced youngster immediately, then that shouldn't be an immediate cause for concern ... they should be able to become reunited if neither has been removed from the immediate nest location.

The main cause for concern of course is keeping the youngster out of the way of ground predators until it is fully feathered ... and out of danger of plunge diving into your pond again.

I wish you all the best.

werdnal · #3 (**permalink**) 24-09-2009, 07:32 AM

Thanks for the concern,

We have tried putting them back out before. Last year a neighbour who had pigeons nesting in their garden, came down one evening with a much younger baby than this one. They know my hubby is an experienced pigeon keeper and they wanted his advice. He went home with them, climbed the tree and found the nest, put the youngster in and they all kept their fingers crossed. The neighbours came out in the morning and found the youngster dead on the path.

As I said, I have raised young woodpigeons before (much younger than this one), and released them. This bird has no yellow down left, and I esimate he is around 18-20 days old, so is almost at the flying stage. By this time the pigeon-milk would have become much more solid, with larger grains included. I am feeding it small grained young-bird food "soup", with plenty of water.

I appreciate your concern about it going out again, but sadly with the amount of cats (including our own) and foxes around here, I doubt it would stand a chance. I know this is nature, but I am not intending to keep him long-term, as he will be allowed to fly and be released as soon as he can get around and manage by himself.