Baby Bird Saga II
If you haven’t read the first short installment of the fledgling story, go HERE.
The fledgling rescued from Morrie’s mouth this morning. He took it upstairs in the pouring rain and was holding the entire little fellow inside his mouth, uninjured.
Well, we have determined that our baby bird is a vermillion flycatcher. How do we know? Long story. We took him into town and my friend went and bought syringes and powdered canary food. The bird came along in an ornamental cage my friend Patti gave me when she moved back to the states years ago. Lenny (Lenny Dykstra, for you baseball fans) came along and got very chirpy and active in the car.
When we got home, we put the cage in the open-sided gazebo, hoping the parent birds would come find him and feed him through the wires of the cage. When this didn’t happen, we opened the door to the cage and he promptly jumped out and into the bushes below the raised gazebo. My friend found him and we put him back in the cage. Now I tried to feed him several concoctions suggested on the internet, but he didn’t eat much. He did drink a few drops of water from a syringe.
Next strategy, we placed him on a rock in the garden. When we did this, 4 vermillion flycatchers, two males and two females, started flying in the air above him and roosting on the tree limbs around him. Eventually, one female rested on the rock with him several times. When she left, he jumped down into the grass from the foot-high rock and started hopping down the sidewalk until we lost sight of him from the gazebo. The four birds continued to swoop. A relief since we had had him for hours in the house during the rain this morning and then in town when we went to see the vet.
Not knowing where Morrie had found him this morning, we had no real idea where the nest might have been that he fell out of. Eventually, Stephanie went to try to find him in the bushes next to the sidewalk, but did not spot him. As she went into the house, I went in search and found him on the spiral walkway formed by the edge of the bodega wall. He either flew up–which seemed an impossibility–or hopped all the way around the end of the wall and then up it–a distance of at least 30 feet. He was at the top, which meant a ten inch hop up to the terrace. He kept looking up as though he was trying to get up courage to jump, but her never did.
At this point the parents were not in view and it was starting to sprinkle, so I put him back in the cage. We put water and food inside, but he seems unabe to eat by himself and earlier attempts to feed him with a syringe didn’t seem to work very well, so we put the cage in the mild afternoon sunlight and waited for the parents to discover him once more.
The mother bird soon came and made several visits, perched atop the cage. She didn’t make any attempts to feed him, however, until I opened the cage door and the baby hopped out onto the table. Since then, I’ve seen her feed him twice.
My friend prepared our third concoction of mashed egg yolk, milk, water and a bit of dried canary powder. If the mom doesn’t come back again, we’ll try feeding him this new concoction, either on the tip of a toothpick or from a syringe. We are by no means experts but so far our entire day has been taken up with trying to keep this fella alive.
He’s now fluffed up in a ball on the tablecloth of the terrace table, waiting for him mom to come with supper. So are we!
Oh my God! Adventure. Three adults soaring over him trying to get him to fly. He actually jumped off the table and hopped rapidly over to the side of the pool and was on its very rim
When we rescued him.I put him on top of the cage so his next jump will be onto the table top instead of the terrace. Now he is craning his neck, looking for his family. I sent my friend to her room before she has a nervous breakdown and I’m keeping watch from the living room. Talk about biology lessons!!!
When I tried to put him in the cage, he started trying to squeeze through the bars and was pacing, pacing, very distressed, so he’s back on top chirping for his folks again, but they haven’t put in another appearance for a long while.
Soon the sun will go down and we’ll all go inside…Because it is the rainy season and we have no idea where the nest is he fell from and because wild animals and cats abound here, there is no safe place to put him outside, Lenny will accompany us to stay safe until his next feeding and flying lesson tomorrow, when we hope his folks will return again.
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