But if it’s concussed after flying into a wall or window—a very common bird injury—and isn’t dead yet, apparently it has decent odds of full recovery if you discourage it from moving and keep predators away for an hour or few.
Thankyou, I wasn’t sure about that. My sisters and I used to nurse birds like that back to health where possible but I had no idea what the prognosis was. I know that if we found any chicks that were alive but displaced from the nest they were pretty much screwed once we touched them due to contamination with human-smell causing rejection.
More recently (now that I’m in Melbourne rather than on a farm) the only birds that have hit my window have broken their neck and died. They have been larger birds so I assume the mass to neck-strength ratio is more of an issue. For some reason most of the birds here in the city manage to not fly into windows anywhere near as often as the farm birds. I wonder if that is mere happen-stance or micro-evolution at work. Cities have got tons more windows than farmland does after all.
Actually the human-scent claim seems to be a myth. Most birds have a quite poor sense of smell.
Blog post quoting a biologist. Snopes.com confirms. However, unless they’re very young indeed it’s still best to leave them alone:
Possibly this widespread caution against handling young birds springs from a desire to protect them from the many well-intentioned souls who, upon discovering fledglings on the ground, immediately think to cart them away to be cared for. Rather than attempting to impress upon these folks the real reason for leaving well enough alone (that a normal part of most fledglings’ lives is a few days on the ground before they fully master their flying skills), a bit of lore such as this one works to keep many people away from young birds by instilling in them a fear that their actions will doom the little ones to slow starvation. Lore is thus called into service to prevent a harmful act that a rational explanation would be much less effective in stopping.
Oh, we were mislead into taking the correct action. Fair enough I suppose. I had wondered why they were so sensitive and also why the advice was “don’t touch” rather than “put on gloves”. Consider me enlightened.
(Mind you the just so story justifying the myth lacks credibility. It seems more likely that the myth exists for the usual reason myths exist and the positive consequences are pure coincidence. Even so I can take their word for it regarding the observable consequences if not the explanation.)
Thankyou, I wasn’t sure about that. My sisters and I used to nurse birds like that back to health where possible but I had no idea what the prognosis was. I know that if we found any chicks that were alive but displaced from the nest they were pretty much screwed once we touched them due to contamination with human-smell causing rejection.
More recently (now that I’m in Melbourne rather than on a farm) the only birds that have hit my window have broken their neck and died. They have been larger birds so I assume the mass to neck-strength ratio is more of an issue. For some reason most of the birds here in the city manage to not fly into windows anywhere near as often as the farm birds. I wonder if that is mere happen-stance or micro-evolution at work. Cities have got tons more windows than farmland does after all.
Actually the human-scent claim seems to be a myth. Most birds have a quite poor sense of smell. Blog post quoting a biologist. Snopes.com confirms. However, unless they’re very young indeed it’s still best to leave them alone:
Oh, we were mislead into taking the correct action. Fair enough I suppose. I had wondered why they were so sensitive and also why the advice was “don’t touch” rather than “put on gloves”. Consider me enlightened.
(Mind you the just so story justifying the myth lacks credibility. It seems more likely that the myth exists for the usual reason myths exist and the positive consequences are pure coincidence. Even so I can take their word for it regarding the observable consequences if not the explanation.)