Baby Blackbird - did I do the right thing?

[FB.]

Several days ago, while walking to the local shops, I came across a very young blackbird which had apparently been dislodged from its nest by the strong winds the day before.
I know blackbirds "fledge" quite early and often spend a week running around on the ground with short wings and no tail, but this youngster has most of its feathers unopened, with large bald patches and areas of brownish-yellow fluff.
It was sat on a footpath, at the base of a wall, along the side of a road - wide open to predator attack. It was so docile that it was oblivious to my presence - if I was a cat I could easily have caught it.
I paused for a few minutes, looking at it. I wondered what to do for the best because I usually leave nature to do its own thing.
But I felt that its chances of survival were very low - either from cats, magpies, sparrowhawks or even the road just a few feet away. So I picked it up and took it home.

I've had it on a "no dairy products" and "nothing with a skin on it unless it's been cut open" diet, which includes feeding it match-head sized, to pea-sized pieces of all the following (4-5 mouthfuls every 1-2 hours, placed/dropped deep into its throat):

Apple
Pear
Orange
Banana
Chopped raisins/sultanas
Chopped-up worms
Squashed flies
Crushed woodlice, ants and aphids
Wetted/sloppy biscuit
Wetted/sloppy bread

It was weak, quiet and rather lacking in life the first day, but has perked up tremendously and sits happily chattering away in a large cage.
I let it out of the cage a couple of times a day to run/flutter around the floor.

But did I do the right thing by "rescuing" it, or should I have left nature to take its course - especially considering the number of worms, flies etc that I'm having to kill to feed it - and considering that I'm not sure whether this bird will be able to have a normal life in the wild now that it's completely accustomed to humans.

[scarey55]

We did exactly the same thing a couple of years ago. Our Jack Russel (Trevor, I know, I know but that was the name he came to us with!) anyway, he had the bird in his mouth so we picked him up and put him high in a tree. We checked throughout the day and no one came to feed him and, as night fell, he was getting very cold so we took him home.

He was similar to yours, I don't think his eyes were even open at that point - he didn't eat anything the first day but, eventually, I got him to take a little water and then we fed him on soaked dry dog food mashed up with a little boiled egg. We kept him warm until he was stronger and then we took him up to the warm study where he could fly around without being terrorised by the dog! We put a bath in with him and a planter full of compost with loads of worms in and he very soon got the idea to dig about and take his own worms.

Anyway, to cut a long story short he grew and grew until, eventually we were able to let him go free (which was always the plan) We rather bodged the release and he flew somewhere where we couldn't find him but I think that he survived.

I'm not sure if you have done the right thing - or, whether or not we did but I like to think we gave him another chance because I'm certain that he would have died overnight had we not intervened.

There is some really useful information here

Feel free to pm me if I can help at all.

[Scarlet]

I couldn't leave it either but you seem to have adopted a bird for life! My brother was a member of the RSBP and we were ways inundated with birds that people came home with at the time we kept Birds of prey.
I would give the bread and biscuit a miss.
Scrambled eggs are great source of protein and easier than looking for worms or grubs when your sort of time.
Good luck.

[Nicos]

Hard to say- although I'm sure I'd have done the same!

A few years ago I helped my daughter feed baby birds brought into the rescue centre she helped out at- and the thing I recall was the fact that you need to handle them as little as often so they don't become too humanised.
Just feed- then leave them until the next feed.
When they get flight feathers we were encouraged to put them on an index finger and suddenly drop the hand about a foot to encourage it to flap it's wings- for balance and strength.
The rescue centre then ringed then prior to release.

We were give live meal worm to feed them ( can't recall what the birds were- thrushes I think)using plastic tweezers

Maybe the best thing for you now is to contact a rescue centre to see what they would suggest/confirm?
Personally I gained a wonderful experience helping to raise several baby birds ( and hedgehogs) to see them released.

I suspect most rescue centres are inundated with baby animals and birds at the moment- and they may be only too pleased to have someone prepared to do what you are doing.

Let us know how you get on eh?

[FB.]

I would give the bread and biscuit a miss.
Scrambled eggs are great source of protein and easier than looking for worms or grubs when your sort of time.

Peculiarly, it'll spit out boiled/mashed egg, behaving as if it doesn't like it. It'll also spit out any type of food if I give it more than two pieces of any one food type in succession, so each meal needs to be one piece of each of several different things.

I should have mentioned in the opening post that it gets fed every 1-2 hours during the day, with a last feed around 11pm and the next feed around 7am; it doesn't get fed during the night (but then I can't imagine adult blackbirds manage to find much food at night either).

When I took him* home, he was a few days younger than the third of "scarey55's" pictures, and, several days later is not yet as "mature" looking as any of the other three pictures provided by scarey55.


*(judging by his regular tuneful chatter to himself I would not be surprised if it's a "he" - his nickname is "Munchkin" and may be referred to as such from now on)

[Verinda]

The official line is that the parents will carry on looking after young birds that have fallen from the nest, but I'm quite sure I'd have done the same as you and have done in the past, not very successfully I'm afraid.

When my husband was young he cared for a baby rook, which grew up and remained living in his garden, his name was Rodney, he used to bang on the door in the morning waiting for breakfast and used to torment the cat, playing tricks on it. Trouble started when he started landing on the pram nextdoor and peering at the baby!
My husband had to take Rodney miles over the fields numerous times to try and encourage him to leave but when he got home Rodney would be there waiting for him! Eventually Rodney flew off on his own accord but still used to come back for visits.

[FB.]

...The official line is that the parents will carry on looking after young birds that have fallen from the nest..

Yes, almost every summer we have a couple of broods of young "fledgling" blackbirds hiding in the shrubs in our garden, sometimes being fed with things stolen from our garden fruit/vegetable plot. Missing blueberries, missing blackcurrants, missing summer-fruiting raspberries.

Last year the blackbirds nested in a clematis growing up our garage. This year a robin is nesting in the ivy. A hedgehog is living under a pile of tree prunings, leaf litter and grass cuttings which the harsh winter prevented me from getting rid of.
Only a couple of weeks ago a sparrowhawk killed and ate a young blackbird in our garden, but in that kind of instance I won't intervene because the sparrowhawk has to eat too and the young bird is probably already mortally wounded from the hawk's first strike - the hawk will only go off and kill a second bird if I don't let it eat the already-near-death first one.

But this young blackbird (Munchkin) looked a lot smaller, younger, barely-feathered and less aware of its surroundings than any which I've ever had running around my garden.
I got the distinct impression that through sheer bad luck he'd been blown out of his nest a week or two before he was ready, by the unusually strong winds.

But generally, yes, I agree: wild birds are best left alone.

[FB.]

Only a couple of weeks ago a sparrowhawk killed and ate a young blackbird in our garden, but in that kind of instance I won't intervene because the sparrowhawk has to eat too and the young bird is probably already mortally wounded from the hawk's first strike - the hawk will only go off and kill a second bird if I don't let it eat the already-near-death first one.

Sparrowhawk attacks on young blackbirds are quite common here.
Below is a poor quality picture taken a couple of years ago, from a distance, in a hurry and consequently blurry, of a sparrowhawk on my lawn after it had just taken a fledgling blackbird - and with the parent blackbirds "dive-bombing" it in an attempt to drive it away.

[scarey55]

Sorry, I was in a bit of a rush earlier and I had meant to name the photos. They didn't come out in order but they are at 12 days after we found him, 8 days, 3 days and 13 days as the photos appear below.

We fed him roughly the same times as you and it was lovely to get up in the morning and hear him calling for food. Once he started to get bigger (and braver, I guess) he took to landing on KKs shoulder when he wanted feeding. One other thing that we did was to put up "perches" - well, sticks really high up so that he could practice flying to high places and had somewhere safe to go if he felt threatened.

[FB.]

..photos.....didn't come out in order but they are at 12 days after we found him, 8 days, 3 days and 13 days.....

Thanks - judging by my earlier comment of:

"....he was a few days younger than the third of "scarey55's" pictures...."

I'd say Munchkin was about the same age as yours when found.

I reckoned his chances in the wild would have been less than 10%.
I reckoned that by taking him in it'd boost his chances to 50%50.

Because I wasn't convinced he'd survive I didn't think to take a picture when he was first brought in. I'll see about getting a picture later.

[scarey55]

Because I wasn't convinced he'd survive I didn't think to take a picture when he was first brought in. I'll see about getting a picture later.

I know that I am straying from the original post (sorry mods ) but I felt exactly the same. I couldn't get enthusiastic about him because I was fairly sure that he wouldn't make it. It took me quite a few days before I could form any sort of feeling for him but, after that ...

[mothhawk]

Well done you! It wouldn't have survived even if the parents fed it - they wouldn't have been able to keep it warm or dry overnight, to say nothing of protecting it from cats, rats, dogs, cars, other birds etc. I think you're a trooper to be prepared to feed it hourly and care for it until it can survive alone. When our local blackbirds have babies, I soak dried mealworms in warm water for a couple of hours, then chuck them on the garden, and they take beakfuls of those to feed the chicks.

[ancee]

I don't think that there is really such a thing as leaving things to 'nature'. Nature can be cruel, mean and awful! I hate it in 'nature' documentaries when the camera men leave stuff to be gobbled up - like baby turtles, it haunts me. I know i'd be the first one running down the beach scaring off the seagulls dive bombing and attacking the poor things. I'd be the one throwing stranded starfish back into the sea, and pushing stray dolphins back into the water. What you've done is lovely, kind and heartening to hear

[Scarlet]

I use softly scrambled eggs, not boiled. My chicks love them!

....any pics yet?

[FB.]

Munchkin the baby blackbird - picture taken just a few minutes ago; it's about a week since he was found.

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