By Donna Ralph
Ellicott Wildlife Rehabilitation Center
This time of year people are picking up baby birds (and various other baby wildlife) all over the place! The kids are outside playing and come inside with a baby bird. The dog or cat brought you a surprise-a baby bird. You're trimming trees and out falls a nest full of baby birds. While mowing the lawn you discover you've run over a nest with babies inside. Do you know what to do? Most people don't.
The phone is ringing with frantic members of our community that want to help but don't know how. Generally it takes someone an average of 5 calls to vets, bird stores, wildlife agencies, and/or critter control services before finding a licensed wildlife rehabilitator to help with their situation. Unfortunately, due to the immense time requirement and financial hardship, there are few licensed rehabilitators able to take baby songbirds. Babies brought to veterinarians die or are euthanized if nobody licensed is available to pick them up and provide care for them. Ellicott Wildlife Rehab can take baby water birds, baby birds of hawks, owls, and falcons, and any and all self-feeding birds but we work regular jobs and cannot tend to more than a few of the songbird babies for the every 15-minute feedings they require, sunup to sundown, for several weeks. As always, our priority is reuniting these babies with their parents, who absolutely give the BEST care possible to these babies. People sometimes pick babies up and try to raise themselves; this is ILLEGAL in the state of Colorado and frankly, after a day or two, or when the baby begins to die, is when these people look to us for help, at which time there's nothing we can do.
MYTH: If I pick the baby bird up and handle it, won't the mother smell my hands and reject the baby?
FACT: Nope. The ONLY bird that has a sense of smell is the turkey vulture, and if you have one of her babies the smell of your hands will be the least of your worries!
Mother birds WILL reject damaged babies. She will boot them out of the nest. She knows the damage well before it manifests itself to the point where people can spot it. Too much handling of babies damages them. The key is to not handle the babies any more than absolutely necessary; stress damages babies.
Are you ready to become a licensed baby bird rehabilitator? No time for yourself and family, no vacations, picnics or barbeques? Outside catching bugs to feed the gaping mouths of hungry babies, feeding every few minutes from sunup to sundown for several weeks? Spending your paycheck to provide care? Ringing telephones? Paperwork? No? Well, this is why there are so few of us.
The BEST parent for any animal is it's own natural parent. Is the baby really orphaned or just fledging (learning to fly?) Fledglings spend a lot of time on the ground but are still cared for by the parents and will not accept food from people. This is the time when they are most susceptible to predation by dogs and cats-keep the pets in for a few days until these youngsters are up and off the ground.
If you find a baby bird, call for help before doing anything that can cause a problem for you or the animal. Call Ellicott Wildlife Rehabilitation Center at 719-683-8152 or visit us online for more help at www.ellicottwildlife.com, or write EWRC, P.O. Box 75069, Colorado Springs, CO. 80970.