Have you ever seen a baby bird from the time it was 2 days old till the time they have feathers and are flying around?
This has been one of my life's greatest accomplishments. I put my heart and soul into caring for these birds, they received hours upon hours of care and attention. I spent hours upon hours reading blogs and bird websites to make sure that I was doing everything correctly. I had my share of negativeness from people, "you need to take them to a wildlife rescue, you are not experienced enough to give them what they need". Some of those comments hurt, struck me right in the heart and some days when the comments came flooding in like that I would think "am I doing more harm than good"? My husband was a great support system throughout this process, without him I may have thrown in the towel, but I am glad I did not....for the full journey go to Fledgling Four.
Up until June 23rd-September 28th I have never seen life change so rapidly. On June 23rd I received a text from my father in law, "a nest of baby sparrows fell from the gutter, I will care for them tonight, will you take them?
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| 2 or 3 days old, my "pinkies". |
A little back story to how it all unfolded.
The nest was initially located at my in-laws house, up on a gutter at the very top of the house. It was a large nest, momma bird went in and out through a hole. After the baby birds hatched the nest must have been to large and it split in half and fell to the ground.... Two baby birds landed outside the nest and the others were still inside. My father in-law put the 2 that fell out back in and left the nest be, in hopes that momma would return.
She did, but back up to the gutter. Sparrows make their nests up high and after the babies hatch that is where they return. They will not look for them anywhere else. Momma bird returned all day to that gutter with worms for the babies, she never did find them.
The baby birds went unattended, with no food for about 6 hours. Then my father in-law stepped in. He did some online research and then ran to the store. He returned with cat food, the baby birds were fed mushed up cat food for the first 24 hours, it is full of protein and vitamins.
The baby birds were offered to me, Roy had to work on Monday and the birds need to be fed every hour throughout the day. This was a big decision for me. Do I want to dedicate myself to these birds for the next 21+ days? With obvious proof the answer was "yes". I picked up the baby birds at 7:15am Monday June 24th.....
The nest was initially located at my in-laws house, up on a gutter at the very top of the house. It was a large nest, momma bird went in and out through a hole. After the baby birds hatched the nest must have been to large and it split in half and fell to the ground.... Two baby birds landed outside the nest and the others were still inside. My father in-law put the 2 that fell out back in and left the nest be, in hopes that momma would return.
She did, but back up to the gutter. Sparrows make their nests up high and after the babies hatch that is where they return. They will not look for them anywhere else. Momma bird returned all day to that gutter with worms for the babies, she never did find them.
The baby birds went unattended, with no food for about 6 hours. Then my father in-law stepped in. He did some online research and then ran to the store. He returned with cat food, the baby birds were fed mushed up cat food for the first 24 hours, it is full of protein and vitamins.
The baby birds were offered to me, Roy had to work on Monday and the birds need to be fed every hour throughout the day. This was a big decision for me. Do I want to dedicate myself to these birds for the next 21+ days? With obvious proof the answer was "yes". I picked up the baby birds at 7:15am Monday June 24th.....
....And that is where my journey began to check out the journey from the beginning check out the Fledgling Four a page I created to document the journey.
The first 3 weeks was grueling, time consuming care. They were fed from a syringe every hour from 6am to 9pm sometimes, every 45 minutes based on their intake. I enjoyed every minute of it though.
I weaned them from formula to bird seed at about a month or so but continued to do one feeding a day of the formula.
I kept the birds a bit longer than I should have, when you put everything you have into making sure they survive it is hard to open the latch and swing the cage door open to let them go.
Yesterday was one of the hardest things I have ever done when I let go, I knew it would hurt but not as much as it did. They are around my house, I am sure they have eaten with the neighborhood sparrows from my bird feeder already. They were greeted with open wings yesterday, one by one as they flew out a group of sparrows would follow it and greet and they would come back and wait for another one to fly out. It was an amazing thing to see as the birds were greeted by the other sparrows. I will miss them but I know that they are here and I know I did the right thing yesterday as hard as it was to see them fly out the cage door, I knew it was time. I will leave you all with some pictures
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