Lyra's animal orphanage, IV

The opposite of well done...

In the middle of working (yes, it's a holiday, and yes, we have to work anyway, because yes, we are working on normal week-days and yes, we have to use weekends and holidays for renovation work), mother-in-law came around the corner with something small and arguable in her gloved hands.

"I took this from 'náro. A little blue tit." (A great tit, actually, but never mind.)
"Oh. And now?"
"It seems to be uninjured, just ruffled."
"Nice. And now?"
"Well, I thought we might put it among the brambles, where the cats won't go?"
"... so it will starve?"
"But that's better than being bitten dead by the cat!"

I have never experienced either lengthy starvation or the ten-minute torture trip cats do with their food, so I have no idea which option is better. But I am not exactly convinced that starvation is it.
I say as much.

"But it might be found again by its parents!"

After it has been touched by a cat and a human? When hidden in a bramble thicket who knows how far from the nest it came from?

"So you want to give it back to the cat?"

No, I am not hard enough for that. *sighs* There's a difference between knowing that the cat has found a small bird and is busy killing it, and with actually chucking a small bird at the cat.

So the next half hour was dedicated to making the old guinea-pig cage ready to hold a small great tit (and may I use this chance to say what an absolutely stupid name for a bird that is, "tit"? Almost as bad as "booby". Srsly, what is it with breasts and birds? Is this still part of the "bride"/"bird" pun?), and researching what the hell to do with a small great tit.

Great tits feed their young about 600 times a day, but they never feed every single chick, of course, and they tend to have seven to twelve of them, so, calculating generously, that means about 80 times per single bird.
Between 5am and 10pm.
So, about every 20 minutes.
Great tits are, thank Yavanna for that favour, generalists, so while they prefer insects they also eat seeds, nuts and berries.

I have sunflower seeds, oat flakes and sesame, plus other random seeds like marigold and fennel and fennugreek. I have strawberries. I somehow have a bad conscience killing spiders and flies in order to attempt saving a little bird, even though the bird is cute and spiders aren't quite so cute. But ant larvae are ok. There are several billion ants around and ever since I found an ant nest in my pillow that one day during the holidays I have started to really hate ants (I never liked them much, though they're useful little bastards). At any rate, I like ants less than great tits. (This is funnier in German, where "ant" is Ameise and "great tit" is Kohlmeise; three syllables both, stress on the first.) So I turn around some stones in the gardens and collect some ant larvae. Tomorrow I can go and buy mealworms, if the bird is still alive.

So, every twenty minutes a tasty mush of seeds, strawberry, ant larvae, and such flies as I can steal from spiderwebs.
From 5am to 10pm?!

Well, perhaps 6am works, if it's dark enough to pretend that the sun hasn't risen yet.

Fun.

And I am not exactly certain whether it'll do any good. I haven't heard a lot of encouraging things about trying to nurse baby birds.

On the other hand, as far as this can be judged at a distance, this baby bird seems to be only 5-3 days away from nest-leaving anyway. It is very loud, very hungry, has already proved that it's digestion is ok, and two hours after its "salvation" it no longer looks ruffled, either. Whenever I open the cage it begins to rant at me in Tit. It has tried to fly twice, which always resulted in a crash-landing - no surprise, as its feathers are not actually unfurled (or whatever you call it) far enough to support its flight. But it already has grasped the basic principle, which I suppose is a good thing. Besides, if it's this active, it might actually have a chance.
I hope.
We'll see.

University tomorrow when all the rest of the country is already celebrating its 2-4 weekend. Ngah.
On plus side, Sir Gawain.