What do you do with a baby bird?

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Gloucester County Nature: What do you do with a baby bird?

by Karl Anderson, Gloucester County Nature Club

Tuesday May 26, 2009, 3:00 AM

This is the season when baby birds are leaving their nests. Some of them leave before they can fly, but if they are healthy, and they parents are nearby, the parents will still care for them.

So what do you do when you find a baby bird on the ground? Why, mostly you just leave it there. Try to keep cats, dogs, and children away from the bird, and perhaps move it out of a traffic path.

If the kids bring one home, try to get it back to where they found it.

Can you put it back in the nest? You could, and the parent birds would care for it even though it's been handled by humans, but how do you find the right nest?

And in the process, you would disturb the nest, and perhaps cause other baby birds to hop out, aggravating the situation.

What happens if the parent birds, for one reason or another, do not care for the baby on the ground?

Well, you can figure that one out.

But keep in mind that mortality of birds in their first few months of life is very high in any case. Counting eggs that don't hatch, as many as 90-percent of some songbird species die in their first year.

Can you hand-raise a baby bird? Well, it's illegal (both state and federal) to have any native bird in your possession, even for “humane” reasons, unless you have suitable permits.

Not that the police are likely to come knocking at your door, but you should be aware of the fact.

There are a few agencies that have permits and will care for a baby bird -- try Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge, in Medford -- 4 Sawmill Road, Medford, NJ 08055, (856) 983 3329.

But you will have to take the bird to them, and it would be polite to leave a donation.

You could, without a permit, hand raise a starling or a house sparrow, neither of which is native.

It's messy and noisy and a 16-hour-a-day job. Parent birds feed their babies more or less constantly during daylight hours, for the few weeks it takes to do the job. Most humans have other things to do. You don't have to teach the bird to fly, though -- it will fly on its own, as soon as its muscles and nervous system are well enough developed .

But will a bird that's been raised on hamburger and applesauce survive in the wild? Probably not.

Young birds do learn some survival skills from their parents during the period shortly before and after they leave the nest.

Your bird will not have that advantage.

And if it was very young when you picked it up, it might not even know it's a bird, since birds recognize their own species by imprinting on their parents.

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