Baby Bird

This spring we became aware that the gutter/ledge right above our master bedroom was a popular bird hangout. After a while, we decided that there was probably a nest somewhere up there. Every morning at sunrise, we were awakened to the sounds of chirping birds. Then over Memorial weekend, Chris heard bird chirping in the attic. He pulled down the attic ladder & he found a tiny baby bird sitting on one of the rungs.

Chris grabbed a mostly empty trash can from Hannah's room to put the trespasser inside and brought him to Hannah & me.

Chris went up into the attic to see if he could find the nest or any other birds, but couldn't find any evidence of other birds. This little bird had hiked across nearly the full width of our house over 18 inches of pink insulation to get to the ladder. It was so hot up there, we were sure he was dehydrated, so we carefully gave him some drops of water which he seemed to appreciate.

Then we wanted to see if we could get him back to his family. Since we had been hearing all the noise at the front of the house near our bedroom, we took him out there first.

We set him in a shady spot & left him there for a short while. We didn't think we would have much luck if we stayed there with him. When we came back to check on him, he was still there and very loud. We don't know how long he had been by himself in the attic. Hannah & I did some research & learned that you can feed baby birds a mixture of kitty food (soaked in water), applesauce, & some other ingredients. He LOVED his special food. We also read that baby birds taken to wildlife rescue places are often dehydrated, so we continued to give him water.


From our research, we decided that he was most likely a Starling (house sparrow). Hannah decided to call him Jack (Sparrow). We have no idea if he was a boy a girl, but we referred to him as a male.

Our photographer friend, Eric Washburn was over the day we found him, so he got some nice pictures of Jack.

 

We kept Jack in a box for his first night, but after that we decided that he would have a better chance of finding his family if he was free. We put him in a bush outside by our patio. We would feed him breakfast & try to encourage him to fly by putting him on the picnic table or hot tub cover.  Over the next few days his wing flapping got stronger & we tried to visit him less frequently. Then after about 1 week from when we first found him, he was gone. We don't know for certain what happened, but we would like to think that he finally got a hang of the flying thing & found some bird friends.

Here's a picture of Jack around day 4 or 5 at our house. It was amazing to see how much he grew in such a short time. Although we miss him, we are glad that he has moved on. We don't need any more animals at this house!

 About a month later, when we were sure that all the baby birds in our nest were gone, Chris put that ladder up outside the front of the house & removed the nest which was inside the attic. He bought some chicken wire to put in place to prevent future nests in our attic. We love birds & nests, but not in our house!!!