This is a continuation of my original post -
HELP Blackbird with tilting head and very placid to handle.
However - I am starting a new thread with this post as I think it may be of interest to others who might find themselves faced with the prospect of having - or choosing - to care for an orphaned baby bird.
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One of the main reason for my first post was the worry that Winnie my little rescued fledgling blackbird had possibly suffered some sort of brain damage before she was brought to me, causing her to exhibit weird looking tilting of her head and a strange transfixed expression on her face.
I now know that this is perfectly normal bird SUNBATHING behaviour!
She still does it regularly when the sun is very hot and bright - as it was on both the first day and second day that I first let her out to wander freely in the garden.
Not having really taken that much notice of bird behaviour before - even though I have lots of birds in my garden - I didn’t know what it was. Then - I found pictures of sunbathing birds online - and one of my neighbours who is a bird lover - confirmed that she sees it happen regularly. In fact when she saw her first sunbathing bird spread eagled in an odd position in her garden she thought it was dead.
Just to cut a long story short for anyone not wanting to read the rest of this post - Winnie has now been “flying high in the sky” - and in all the surrounding gardens - for the last fortnight and although she still comes back for extra food, and stays fairly close to home - has almost returned to being wild and seems to be coping very well.
After my first post re my anxious sleepless night and my thoughts that I may not be doing the right thing by helping her especially if she had been in some way injured - I contacted several wildlife sanctuaries - but none could take her at that point - which actually turned out to be a good thing.
I think I was suffering from the “things look darkest before dawn” syndrome when I wrote that first post - as actually she was eating well and flying well indoors in the summerhouse - and generally making very good progress overall. But I started to worry about what might happen to her and how she would cope when she returned alone to the wild - especially without any parental guidance
One of the sanctuaries I spoke to (which was full to overflowing with orphaned chicks ) was very helpful in giving me lots of advice. The owner said she thought all that was wrong was that maybe the bird needed for things to slow down a bit and to give her a bit more fledgling “under the shrubbery time” and ideally could I possibly try to make some sort of temporary aviary structure with a little bird house in it so that she had a little hideaway to go to if necessary.
I also asked her how would she learn normal “bird behaviour” without parents - and she reassured me that she has not found that lack of parental guidance too much of a problem - as long as there were plenty of other birds around to watch - she should be fine - and also that natural instincts should emerge eventually anyway.
Although Winnie had a small wooden outdoor cage that she had spent a lot of time in - pecking the grass and “birdwatching” - I looked into buying some aviary panels and possibly constructing an aviary. However - Winnie decided she did not need one.
The following evening - she took to the trees about 8pm and made it quite plain she was staying up there! (She had had one unsuccessful outing overnight about a week previously and I had kept her in overnight since then.)
I could hardly sleep all night - and when I came down about 5.30am the next morning - I whistled and down she came chirping away as usual. I had put some soaked dried mealworms in her little “house” (see below) overnight - which had all gone - and now I gave her some live ones which she gobbled down and then was off up onto the pergola and popping here there and everywhere in the neighbourhood gardens - and she has been doing the same ever since. That was about 14 days ago.
I am fortunate in that I have a little enclosed trellised area around the back door of my house and although she didn’t seem to need the aviary, I was able to make her a little bird house from a wooden box - that fixes onto the supports of the trellis. It has a small opening for her on the garden side - and I can put food in there and clean it via the removable back on the house side of the trellis. It has a flat platform in it and a perch and water and she can come in there whenever she wants some extra food or some peace and quiet through the day.
She has stayed out in the trees overnight from then on (she never uses her house overnight) and by a week later she was starting to be quite wary of me - and she now flies off when she sees me - and waits at a discreet distance away when I am putting food out in the garden or into her little house (which she still uses quite regularly).
So she has already learned via the grapevine to keep her distance from humans….so that’s a good start.
When I first took that decision to try to help her I thought - well she’s going to die very shortly and maybe horribly, anyway - so I don’t think I can make things worse. I will try and see if she will let me feed her - and then I can give her room to practice learning to fly indoors - and that’s a start ……… and I’ll take it from there.
(I am lucky that I had an old summerhouse to use for early flying and running around in- but a garage would have done - I wouldn’t recommend a room in the house - unless you don’t mind bird-poo everywhere………)
And its funny but the whole process from the start of her being tipped out of the nest and to her taking to the trees every night has been almost exactly 3 weeks - which is about the time it takes for a fledgling’s mother to start giving her offspring the cold shoulder in order to make them more independent - so instinct and mother nature still seemed to be working perfectly and putting her on the right track.
I can’t tell you what a revelation this experience has been to me in that I - a great big human being could have had this lovely personal relationship with this tiny 3-4 inch creature (yes - I mean she actually knows me and she asks me for things and looks and SPEAKS to me ) - absolutely amazing. I have always had cats and dogs in my life - but somehow never thought I could have a similar relationship with a tiny bird.
I am shocked that as an animal lover I have totally taken birds for granted and assumed that they were fairly senseless creatures - and not given them the same respect for having senses and feelings and intelligence that I give to other larger animals.
So after many hours of gleaning vital feeding and caring info on the internet bird sites - many hours of worm digging and feeding - and many Winnie child minding hours in the garden later - its all worked out - Phew - sigh of relief - …. well - dare I say it - pretty perfectly so far….....
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(I thought I would add another post after this one for anyone interested in a bit more detail on the actual nitty gritty of the things I did. I don’t know if they were the “politically correct” things to do (and I hope anyone with better knowledge will correct anything that I should/shouldn’t have done -) but fortunately for Winnie and me - all's ended well for us.)
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