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| Question about Pets:I found a wild baby bird? |
Do NOT attempt to feed a baby bird seed - you will kill it!
Do NOT take it to a vet - vets are for pets, and most do not have the experience needed to care for wild animals, nor do they really want to, in most cases.
If the baby has most of its feathers, it is a fledgling. Baby birds fledge (leave the nest) several days before they can fly. They need time to hop around on the ground, climb low branches, and exercise their wings until they have strengthened them enough for flight. The parent birds continue to feed and care for the fledglings until they are self-sufficient.
If this is a fledgling, put it back near where you found it. Find a low bush you can place it in. If the parents can hear it, they will return to it and continue to care for it.
If it is not feathered that much, and you think it was still a nestling, try to find the nest and place the bird back in the nest. Do not worry that you have touched it. Birds do not have an acute sense of smell. The parent birds will not detect your scent on the baby, and will not reject it. Wildlife biologists and bird banders handle baby birds all the time, with thier bare hands, and the parents never reject the babies.
If you can not find the nest and place the bird back, contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. You can find one here:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~devo0028/contact....
Please, under no circumstances, attempt to care for the baby bird yourself. There is so much more to rehabilitation than keeping the animal alive until you think it is ready to be released. You have to know not only what to feed the bird, but how (please do NOT attempt to give the bird any liquid by dropper - baby birds can aspirate and die), how much and how often. You also have to know how to assess the birds general health and condition.
A baby bird kept in captivity must be taught to recognize and find the type of food it will eat in the wild. If it is being hand-fed, it may not associate the bugs and berries and seeds in nature as being food. It must also have the opportunity to exercise its wings a lot, so it will be able to fly on or shortly after release. When I volunteered at the Avian Rehabilitation Center, we kept the rehabilitating fledglings in a large walk-in cage with lots of shelves and branches leading from one shelf to the other, and down to the ground. We would place different types of food in the cage for them, as they were being weaned from the hand-feeding formula. We offered seed, meal worms and chopped up fruit. No fledgling was released until it was eating on its own, had sufficient weight gain, had all of its flight feathers in good condition, had no sign of diarreah or nasal discharge, had clear eyes, and could fly at least a few feet in a straight line.
These are the reasons to get the bird to a licensed rehabilitator - they have the training and the resources necessary to do all this, in addition to having the permits to do it all legally.
All native migratory birds in the US are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and you must have the proper permits to have them, even for a short time, even for good reasons like saving them. Many other countries also have similar laws regarding their native species
former volunteer - Avian Rehabilitation Center
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