My son and I have been having lots of fun with the baby birds that decided to call our front patio home. We come home and he first looks for our dog in the window and next the bird’s nest above the front door. I blogged last week about the birds who were growing fast and making a big mess of the front patio in the process. A few days ago I noticed two of the three birds had left the nest and every now and then the three of them would be together. This morning Tyler and I went to lock up the place and as usual we looked up to see what the birds were up to and we were surprised to find the baby bird who hadn’t yet left the nest had left the nest but was dangling from it and couldn’t free itself. I walked away thinking it was strange but then I thought being the animal lover I am I should help the little thing.
I’m not gonna lie even though I like animals I’m scared of getting bit, kicked, or eaten by them. Baby bird didn’t seem like the type of animal that would eat me but it looked pretty upset that it was caught. I at first thought I would get a ladder and cut it down but then thinking that it hadn’t yet flown successfully I thought “wow that would really stink if I freed the dang thing to only find it couldn’t fly and it plummeted to its death right at my doorstep on the concrete patio”. So then the idea struck me, I would take a broom handle and knock it free and put a big plush dog bed beneath it so if it did fall it would have a safe place to land. So I got everything in place and started to take the broom handle and attempted to separate the bird from the nest but it just upset the bird who bit at the broom handle and made a “eeeeeek” sound (not pretty people…not pretty).
I then decided I’m just making things worse by poking a broom at the poor bird so maybe I could break a piece of the mud nest off to free it instead. I took the broom handle and nudged the nest where the bird and some sort of Spiderman netting were connected. Wouldn’t you know it with my luck I nudged where it was connected and the nest came crashing down to the ground. The bird and nest luckily fell right onto the dog bed but the dang bird was still connected to the nest! I got the bird and nest off of the dog bed and went to work thinking the bird would free itself now that it was on the ground and I didn’t want to mess with it any more than I already had (one can only do so much damage in one day). Of course me messing with baby bird and knocking the nest down infuriated momma, brother, and sister bird. They dive bombed me trying to keep me away from baby bird but I had my trusty broom with me so I kept swatting them away and almost hit one of them. How ironic would that have been if I killed another bird while saving another. Long story short they were not happy with me and I was not happy with them trying to dive bomb me.
Upon returning to work the bird was still on the ground and was still connected to the nest. It was much more calm and just watched us go into the house. I got my son and dog taken care of and went outside with some gloves and separated the bird from the nest which wasn’t easy. Whatever the bird got into it was really stuck to him and no it wasn’t his wing. However if you look closely in the video his right wing is all messed up before he even hit the ground. It looked like it was either broken, didn’t have any feathers, or both. I swept up the mess the nest made from earlier this morning and went back inside after moving the baby bird to a safe place where there was less foot traffic. I noticed he wasn’t doing so well and didn’t seem to have much energy. A few hours later I went outside and he was dead. He was a good little guy so Bob the Baby Bird (that is his name and I’m sticking to it), this post is for you my man. Note this video footage isn’t going to win any awards. I was more focused on the task at hand and the birds kept attacking me so I was a little distracted at the moment.
Before
After