Thursday, May 21, 2009

Baby Birds

Little baby birds have been falling out of the house for two days now.

Yesterday I was sitting in the yard harvesting dandelion greens and a baby bird walked over to me, talking up a storm. It took me a while to figure out what to do about it. Eventually I figured out what hole in the eaves that it had come out of. I tried to put it back, but it fell. I had to go retrieve it again. The second attempt worked, and they baby bird joined its sibling mate at looking at me out of the hole.

This morning I walked around the corner of the house and there was a baby bird sitting on the sidewalk. I said to myself, "Oh, great, can't they control themselves?" So I picked this one up, mind you I am not touching them but with hats and shirts and gloves... and I was walking around front to show David... we were in the process of mixing up a bucket of poltice... and there was another baby bird sitting on the ground chirping at me. So I scoped them both up in my hat, thinking they had come from the same hole. I stuffed them both back in the hole but they did not seem to fit. A few minutes later one of them was back on the ground again. So then I realized there are two holes and I was trying to stuff one of the baby birds in the wrong hole. I went around to the side of the house and we got the ladder and I stuffed the baby bird back up into the eaves on that side of the house. Not sure if I got it in the correct hole, or not. Seems they are starlings, least ways the birds that I assume are parents and that are freaking out making all sorts of noise in the trees are starlings.

These baby birds are way too young to be on the ground, they can't fly, and we have neighborhood cats that come around when the dog is not out.

One year I found a baby starling, just like this one, huddled up in a corner of a sidewalk against a building. I brought it home and nursed it up to an adult starling. We called it Persnik... because he was always complaining and persnickety. I decided one day to let him out of his cage outdoors and he flew away making a hell of a racket. Never saw him again.