Help needed please with baby bird

redbanana · #1 (**permalink**) 30-05-2010, 08:09 PM

Hi all,

Early this morning I noticed a cat in the back of my garden and went out to see what it was doing, I noticed a very young baby bird, it hardly has any frathers, mainlky a bit of downy feather and a little bit of yellow atthebottom of its beak.

I don't know if the cat got this bird, or if the cat had disturbed a squirrel or stoat or whatever else would pinch a baby bird or if it fell out of a nest or what.

I chased the cat off and the bird was lying on it's side struggling so I put it upright and left it alone.

I have looked all day and there is no sign of it's mother coming. it is now getting dark and I am worried as to what to do. Do I bring it in the house and take it to a rescue place as the amount of wildlife round here it will surely be eaten in the night or do I just leave it for nature to take it's course? it looked like it has a little bit of blood on its face but it is alive and well at the moment and when I go outside to see if I can see its mum or how it's doing it opens its beak at me as though it is hungry.

Does anyopne know of anyone who helps birds in the County Durham area please.

I feel really sorry for this little chap, he is quite a large birs so I am thinking maybe wood pigeon as we have loads of woodies here.

I really can't see a nest in the connifer tree and have looked and looked, they do nest just opposite mine though but not seemingly in my tree.

Please advise what you think I should do for this fellas best chance at survival.

Picidae · #2 (**permalink**) 30-05-2010, 08:30 PM

Please read ADVICE on this thread

If you find a BABY BIRD

dragana85 · #3 (**permalink**) 31-05-2010, 01:52 AM

Hey, what happened with the baby bird?

redbanana · #4 (**permalink**) 31-05-2010, 10:51 AM

Well he is still there this morning.

Having read the advice thread thing I didn't think the connifer tree was suitable to place the bird into a box and in that tree as it is flimsy.

I had visitors in the night, whether human or fox I don't really know but the back gate had been pushed open so whether it was human intruders or a foxy remains unknown but the little chap is still alive and I have sat for hours at my window and still not seen a sighting of any mother going in there to feed him. he seems perky enough though, he has moved a little farther over but is still undercover and I'm hoping being fed. It is deffo a woodie and I'm just hoping he isn't going to die a slow death of starvation.

redbanana · #5 (**permalink**) 01-06-2010, 09:10 AM

For anyone who is interested or not..........

The baby woodpigeon is now dead

I know a lot of folk think they are vermin but I think they are beautiful and intelligent birds.

Picidae · #6 (**permalink**) 01-06-2010, 10:53 AM

Sorry to hear that Bandana. I'm afraid that the youngster was in all likelyhood already fatally injured (by Cat or fall from nest) before you found it.

The advice given on the link I gave you re: placing bird in a makeshift nest or leaving it to be fed by parents, was only if it was uninjured btw. Any bird that's likely been the victim of a cat attack needs to be taken to a vet for antibiotics as further comments on the thread make clear. To be honest, chances are it wouldn't have survived the fall or cat attack or whatever predated the nest, from what you describe of it's injuries anyway.

redbanana · #7 (**permalink**) 01-06-2010, 11:19 AM

Thanks Picidae,

In my worry I admit i didn't read the whole thread, hadn't even realised there was more. Just read your post. Now I know I should have taken it to a vets or found a wildlife rescue. I have done a lot of searching over the weekend and this morning found one in Thirsk, which is about 45 mins away so don't even know if the bird would have surviced that journey but I do now feel responsible as I am sure with anitbiotics it would have lived or likely would have as he seemed so chipper and his crop was full so mum must have been feeding still surely? I just feel so sad as this little chap was seemingly doing well, moving around by himself even climbing up the little rockery and getting himself into the sun. I really thought he was going to make it.

Having been bitten by a cat and ending up in hospital myself a few years ago I should have known better as celulitis is a very painful and dangerous thing.

I hope little matilda the Woody is now flying around with all of the other little babies that didn't make it in this world.

Picidae · #8 (**permalink**) 01-06-2010, 08:30 PM

It's a harsh life lived in the raw, bandana - and don't berate yourself. If you had have taken it to a vet/rescue, it's chances may have been very slight. It wasn't fledged and pigeon chicks need special milk from their mother's crop. They are very difficult to hand rear successfully, especially if already injured.

Just to put it into an 'emotional' perspective: this Spring, I've been watching half a dozen webcams of various species. I've seen nearly an entire Tawny Owl family wiped out by starvation/mites (of four chicks, only one left in nest), an entire brood (8) Great Tits die slowly one by one in the nest from starvation as a result of the death of one of the parents, an entire brood of Blue Tits predated by a Woodpecker, a White Stork chick being thrown alive off a nest by a parent struggling to feed so many chicks .... and those are just the webcams - the stories are repeated a million times over during the breeding season out of our sight. (That doesn't include several of my newly fledged Starlings being predated in the garden by the neighbours cat while parents were trying to feed them)