Lyra's animal orphanage, IV

[oloriel]

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.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

BTW it has been proved that the hunting endeavours of cats are NOT damaging the bird population, in fact - no matter how heart-breaking any young bird's death is.


That, uh, was not really my point, or I would have quoted that, too ...? We have a free-roaming cat at home as you know. The birds simply build higher since then - but my parents have a birdhouse used to feed during the winter and now don't do it anymore because it would basically be a drive-through snackbar for Niko. So I can, kind of, relate to that opinion, too, because the bird-environment in my parents' garden indeed changed (although I know that statistically it doesn't mater). YMM.

The rest of the page is still very valid - and if the bird is healthy, just try to put it outside somewhere around the vicinity where the cat found it and wait quietly (in this case keeping the cats away of course ;) ).

Would random tits adopt a baby bird that's not actually their own?

I have no clue xD

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

That was me. And I also meant "YMMV" of course. Argh. early morning comments ;)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I know it wasn't your point - sorry! It was just something that annoyed me while I read that page. I know it's probably unjust, but if some place I go to for advice has one bit of unfair/ ill-informed/ irrelevant information on it, I tend to trust the rest a little less. Should've made that clearer.

I don't doubt that the makro-population of a place (like your parents' garden, or to some extent ours - although all our neighbours had cats before or own were added to the mix, so it's not like the neighbourhood was any less dangerous before we came) can be changed to some extent by an active cat. At the very least, birds may be more careful/ build their nests higher up, and some may choose a different breeding spot altogether. But as you said, statistically that just isn't relevant. (Unless, I suppose, we're talking about rare birds where one dead bird means a third of the overall population!)

We tried the "putting the bird outside", although as we don't know just where the cat found it the place was a bit tricky. Perhaps I chose the wrong vicinity, or I was too obvious while waiting; at any rate in the one and a half hour that I watched no bird showed any interest in the little fellow. (Yes, the page says "two hours at least", but at some point I had to go to uni - I am not a full-time ornithologist, alas!) So for lack of any better ideas we've taken it back inside to feed it through the night, and we'll try putting it outside again tomorrow.

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

I know it's probably unjust, but if some place I go to for advice has one bit of unfair/ ill-informed/ irrelevant information on it, I tend to trust the rest a little less.

In this case this is not really the clever way to go, as they actually know what to do with young birds. That the writer of this webpage takes the "side" of the birds, not the cats, should not be a ginormous surprise. To discredit the rest of the page because of that is indeed unjust.

As I said: I agree. I still believe what they write about finding and taking care of young birds is very valid *shrug*

I do hope it survives - in any case, you have work and study to do and can't be a birdmom. Maybe bringing it to a shelter (or whatever Auffangstation means) is the best solution.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I did my best to get over my unfair judgement and read the page. ("trust it a little less" doesn't mean "totally discredit", you know.)

Fortunately this week Jörg has to work afternoons and nights while I am away mornings and early afternoons, so we can actually take shifts, and with Whitsun holidays next week and the short week after there's usually someone at home. So far it seems to be doing well, at least; it's begun to practice flying (... well, jumping and frantic wing-beating, more like) and is generally being a curious (and greedy) little beast.

The closest Auffangstationen to us are in Düsseldorf or the Ruhr area, all of which means more than half an hour in a car. Not certain I want to do that to the poor thing...