What You Should Do With Baby Bird Orphans
Wherever you live, at some time during the spring breeding season for birds you will come across a baby bird. In all instances these youngster will probably have just left the nest (fledged) and will look very vulnerable.
Human nature dictates that you will be concerned for the young bird’s safety and want to do something to ensure its survival.
One thought that will cross your mind is “Should I rescue a baby bird or leave it to fend for itself?”
In almost every case Do Not Interfere, but leave the young fledgling bird alone.
It is perfectly natural for a young bird to be wandering around while waiting for one of its parents to come back and feed it. So just leave the young bird where it is and let nature take it’s course so that the parent birds can look after it. Do not move it as they may not then know where it has gone.
These fledgling birds are usually fully feathered but may still be a little fluffy as well and could have shorter tails than the adult birds. Each spring all bird babies leave the nest and learn to be adults as their parents still feed them outside of the nest for several days until they learn to feed for them selves. Their parents will be somewhere nearby.
If you watch carefully for a while you will probably see the parents feed the youngster. If you don’t see the parents do not worry as the young bird may have just been fed and may not require feeding again for a while.
However if you find a bird which is unfeathered and looks quite helpless then you should try to return it to the nest if you can find it. It should be almost directly above where you found the bird.
If you can not get it back to the nest then you should put the baby bird in a shoe box and cover it so the chick is in the a dark light. Then take the young bird to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. Do not try to take care of it yourself and do not feed it!
You will probably not know what kind of bird it is and you certainly will not know what to feed it. If it eats the wrong food it will die!
Do not take advice from books, the library, friends, relatives or the internet. Just take it to someone who is qualified to care for young birds and you will save it’s life.
If you keep it, you will kill it. Sad, but true!
