In the Dog House

Baby Birds

Posted on May 5, 2019

One of the many calls we get this time of year is about baby and young birds that have seemingly fallen from their nest.

Here are some great tips to follow from Dr. Karen Becker, if you should come across one.

Is the Bird You Just Found an Infant or juvenile? Young birds usually fall into one of two categories:

1. Nestlings are baby birds that are featherless, with pink skin. They can’t move around much or fly and they still need to be in the nest.


What to Do If You Find a Nestling

Nestlings (the featherless baby birds) are sometimes blown out of their nest on a windy day or during a storm. And sometimes, the whole nest comes down. If you find a nestling, take the following steps:


2. If the nest has been blown down or has fallen to the ground, you’ll want to collect as much of the nest material from the ground as possible.

3. Next, get a plastic container the approximate size of the original nest or you can cut one to size. Put the nest material into the container and poke a few small holes in the bottom for drainage. If there’s no nest material left, you can substitute either an old wash cloth or other type of clean, dry cloth, or some clean paper towels.


5. From a distance, watch your homemade nest very closely and wait for the mother bird’s return. Please understand it is a myth that mother birds abandon baby birds touched by human hands.

Birds have a very poor sense of smell, so mama bird isn’t likely to pick up your scent on her nestling! Rest assured the mother bird has invested time and energy into raising her baby, and nature will prompt her to continue until the baby bird can survive on its own. You should feel very comfortable gently picking the nestling up and placing it back in the makeshift nest you’ve secured high up in the tree.

The Fledgling Stage Instead of a little pink, featherless baby bird, you might run across one a bit older, a fledgling. These are young birds that have outgrown the nest. Flying from the nest to the ground is instinctual in fledglings, but their landing and ground take off skills are still developing. Fledglings spend several days to several weeks hopping around on the ground, learning hunting and foraging skills from their parents. During this period in the fledgling’s development, the mother bird is usually within calling distance of her youngster. She will return intermittently to feed the fledgling while it learns how to find its own food on the ground and continues to mature.

What NOT to Do If You Encounter a Fledgling

Fledglings are more often “kidnapped” than nestlings because people who find them hopping around on the ground alone assume they’ve been orphaned rather than blown out of their nest.

If you see a fledging, you might be tempted to capture it to get it out of harm’s way. You might look around for the young bird’s parents, not finding them, you assume the baby is an orphan and you approach it. It’s rare, but there is a slight chance you could be dive bombed by a mother or father bird as you get close to their baby. If that should happen, it’s your cue to leave the fledgling alone. In most cases, however, you won’t see or hear the parents. If you capture the baby to remove it to what you believe is a safer location, what you’re unintentionally doing is kidnapping the fledging from its mother and interrupting its natural development.

What you want to do instead is simply keep pets and children away from the area where the fledging is hopping about. The mother and father will continue to support their young bird from a distance and within a relatively short time the fledgling will develop the breast musculature and feathers it needs to fly away to its life as an adult bird.

What to do in an Emergency

There are a few situations which are genuine emergencies and you’ll need to intervene to save the life of the nestling or fledgling you’ve found. If you find a nestling, and the mother bird hasn’t returned to the nest within a day or so, do the following:

• Put the bird and container with nesting material or a clean cloth, place in a warm, quiet area of your home. Don’t attempt to feed the baby bird.

• Contact your veterinarian, or local wildlife centre for further instruction. References:


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