This baby house sparrow almost
lost its life to a cat that climbed into the tree over thirty foot to attack
the helpless birds. Be aware of the bird calls. If you hear many different
birds chirping and gathering to one place - look around to see if a predator
is lurking. That is how this one survived. I saw the cat sitting in the
tree and held a mirror of sunshine at the cat and it came down. The bird
fell dropping branch to branch before I could pick it up. It was trembling
from its near death experience. I chased the "reluctant to leave"
cat out. The cat packs have been multipling and many bird nests are laying on
the ground.
A chipping sparrow nest was previously thrown to the ground
another day. I saved the nest and used it for this little sparrow. The
bird recovered about an hour later and was chirping for its parents. Don't
know if any other birds were in the demolished nest... caused by the
cat! The bird needed several more days in the nest before it could even
fly.
I placed the nest in a basket and tied it in the same
tree where I could reach. To insure its saftey I had to monotor it through
out the day. The parent birds came to feed it. I waited till dusk when
the birds left to sleep to remove the basket from the tree. I carefully
untied the basket not to disturb the bird and brought it inside the house.
Why... To insure that it would not be attacked during the night or be soaked from a hard
rain or thunder storm. Where I hung the nest - is not where the parent bird
kept it. But in the same tree where the birds could find the young bird.
Before day break I carefully hung the nest in the same place for
the parent birds to find and continued to feed it. |
Tie the cord on all four corner and tied it over a branch making sure
it was in the shade and protected from high wind and did not sway 2 -3
inch clearance opening of top of nest to over hanging branches.
One day I had to put the nest on the window sill of the house during
a rain down pour making sure the parent birds knew where it was. |
This went on for 3 days then during the last day the little
bird "flew the coop". It wasn't going to be indoors over night
anymore. As far as I know the little bird is following its family group
of sparrows around.
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