SHARP
07-19-2009, 10:55 PM
This'll be a post about a couple of small birds I found last week.
Where I work there's couple of White Wagtails nesting up under the roof, and until recently they had 3 chicks.
Now, the nest is located on top of an I-beam between the wooden rafters, about 6 meters off the ground, which is covered in asphalt.
About two weeks ago when we showed up for work, we found two of the chicks lying dead under the nest. Apparently they'd tested their wings but were too small to fly, so I dumped them outside. I guess one of the parents saw me pick them up, because for the rest of the day it followed me around where ever I went, until I brought 'em back in so the bird could see for itself that they were dead, and that I didn't have them.
As I noticed the parents still flew in with insects, I concluded there was at least one chick left in the nest, so I placed a 2 meter tall steel cart with a cardboard box and a 2X1 meter foam sheet under the nest, in case the last chick decided to take a plunge.
The next day the parents acted really strange, they didn't fly to the nest with food but kind of just flapped around and called out. Luckily I had a lot of work to do out in the hangar where the nest is, and noticed a tweeting response to the parents calls. They kept going back to the same spot on the floor under a stack of pallets, and when I took a look underneath I could see the last chick siting there.
As there's a cat that regularly visits us in the shop, I decided to get it back to the nest ASAP, so I had a mate give me a hand with a fork lift, and got it back to the nest. Then I hung a cardboard box underneath and put a layer of foam in the bottom. The idea was that the bird couldn't get out of there until it was strong enough to fly on its own, in case it decided to test its wings again.
The day after I noticed the parents weren't flying straight to the nest, but to the box instead, so the plan had worked.
Last Friday, my boss told me he'd seen the chick flying around in the hangar, before finally flying out the gate.:)
Here's a few pics of one of the parents:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Wagtail2.jpghttp://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Wagtail3.jpg
The chick in the box I kept it in while being lifted up to the nest:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Wagtail1.jpg
The box I hung under the nest, as is obvious it's quite a long drop down to the ground:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Box.jpg
The next one doesn't have nearly as happy an ending, but first a couple of unrelated pics I took on the same trip and thought I'd share, the moon and a toad my mate found:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Moon.jpghttp://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Toad.jpg
Sorry about the shitty quality, my camera doesn't work too well in low light conditions.
Last weekend I was on a camping trip with a couple of friends and their son, let's call them "N" (my mate), "M" (his wife), and "J" (their 6 year old son).
We camped out at a shelter over the weekend, and got piss drunk. Saturday I woke up as J came back from a game of hide and seek with his dad, and I asked him if he'd found his dad yet, his answer was -"No, but I found a chicken..." - In Denmark the word "chick" means the same as the word "chicken", so I asked him what the hell he was on about, and he told me he'd found a tiny chicken sitting next to the path, and so I stumbled out of my hammock and went to take a look, along with M, and this is what we found:
Here's M giving it a capful of water:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TB2.jpg
And it soon looked a bit better:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TB1.jpg
I dug up a couple o' worms and fed it, I had no idea what it ate but worms seemed to work pretty well:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TBfeeding.jpghttp://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TBwithworm.jpg
The bird became a lot more active after that, and tried to follow me around when I walked away.
We kept an eye on it but apparently the parents had abandoned it, I tried putting it next to a spot where an adult bird that looked kind of similar was chirping away, and even though the chick called out no one responded.
So after about 30 minutes I decided to take care of it myself, despite my mate telling me it was doomed from the start.
I build a box out of cardboard and duct tape and lined it with straws, but the bird (which I'd named "Kurczaczek" at this point - it means "tiny chicken" in Polish; M is from Poland and I asked her to translate it) weren't too happy about being in the box, but didn't object to sitting on my finger:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TBfinger.jpg
At this point it looked pretty satisfied, and even had the energy to clean itself and take a nap, so I can only assume it was doing fine.
Occasionally it'd wake up if I moved around too much, and immediately demand food, and I fed it.
As the night fell and I got more and more drunk, I thought about keeping the bird in my shirt pocket until I'd go to sleep, but the bird objected violently and we agreed on letting it sit on the zipper instead, and allow me to have both hands free.
Here it's taking a nap with its head under its wing:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TBpocket.jpg
Around 5 o' clock in the morning dark clouds started rolling in, and I asked M to hold Kurczaczek while I went out with N and my trusty machete to get some dry wood for the bonfire, before everything got soaked.
When we got back M told me the bird had been sleeping all the time, and that she'd gently put it in the box without waking it up, and it was still sleeping when I checked on it later.
When I woke up it was lying dead on its side, and J picked out a hill top where we buried it, R.I.P Kurczaczek, at least you died with your belly full.
So, what the fuck do I do next time I find a tiny bird?
Naturally it'd be a good idea to ID the little bugger first, and I did all I could including contacting an ornithologist I know, but either a) the bird was doomed from the beginning, as my mate said, or b) I did something wrong.
According to the ornithologist the outcome was to be expected, but it looked like it was doing pretty good.
Don't bother answering if you think I might find your reply utterly stupid, no, I'm not going to just stomp on it or something similarly retarded, the reason I take care of these tiny creatures is because dying alone and hungry is a shitty way to go, and as I already have a fuckload of animals, another one isn't going to break my budget.
So, fire away, people.
Where I work there's couple of White Wagtails nesting up under the roof, and until recently they had 3 chicks.
Now, the nest is located on top of an I-beam between the wooden rafters, about 6 meters off the ground, which is covered in asphalt.
About two weeks ago when we showed up for work, we found two of the chicks lying dead under the nest. Apparently they'd tested their wings but were too small to fly, so I dumped them outside. I guess one of the parents saw me pick them up, because for the rest of the day it followed me around where ever I went, until I brought 'em back in so the bird could see for itself that they were dead, and that I didn't have them.
As I noticed the parents still flew in with insects, I concluded there was at least one chick left in the nest, so I placed a 2 meter tall steel cart with a cardboard box and a 2X1 meter foam sheet under the nest, in case the last chick decided to take a plunge.
The next day the parents acted really strange, they didn't fly to the nest with food but kind of just flapped around and called out. Luckily I had a lot of work to do out in the hangar where the nest is, and noticed a tweeting response to the parents calls. They kept going back to the same spot on the floor under a stack of pallets, and when I took a look underneath I could see the last chick siting there.
As there's a cat that regularly visits us in the shop, I decided to get it back to the nest ASAP, so I had a mate give me a hand with a fork lift, and got it back to the nest. Then I hung a cardboard box underneath and put a layer of foam in the bottom. The idea was that the bird couldn't get out of there until it was strong enough to fly on its own, in case it decided to test its wings again.
The day after I noticed the parents weren't flying straight to the nest, but to the box instead, so the plan had worked.
Last Friday, my boss told me he'd seen the chick flying around in the hangar, before finally flying out the gate.:)
Here's a few pics of one of the parents:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Wagtail2.jpghttp://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Wagtail3.jpg
The chick in the box I kept it in while being lifted up to the nest:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Wagtail1.jpg
The box I hung under the nest, as is obvious it's quite a long drop down to the ground:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Box.jpg
The next one doesn't have nearly as happy an ending, but first a couple of unrelated pics I took on the same trip and thought I'd share, the moon and a toad my mate found:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Moon.jpghttp://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/Toad.jpg
Sorry about the shitty quality, my camera doesn't work too well in low light conditions.
Last weekend I was on a camping trip with a couple of friends and their son, let's call them "N" (my mate), "M" (his wife), and "J" (their 6 year old son).
We camped out at a shelter over the weekend, and got piss drunk. Saturday I woke up as J came back from a game of hide and seek with his dad, and I asked him if he'd found his dad yet, his answer was -"No, but I found a chicken..." - In Denmark the word "chick" means the same as the word "chicken", so I asked him what the hell he was on about, and he told me he'd found a tiny chicken sitting next to the path, and so I stumbled out of my hammock and went to take a look, along with M, and this is what we found:
Here's M giving it a capful of water:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TB2.jpg
And it soon looked a bit better:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TB1.jpg
I dug up a couple o' worms and fed it, I had no idea what it ate but worms seemed to work pretty well:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TBfeeding.jpghttp://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TBwithworm.jpg
The bird became a lot more active after that, and tried to follow me around when I walked away.
We kept an eye on it but apparently the parents had abandoned it, I tried putting it next to a spot where an adult bird that looked kind of similar was chirping away, and even though the chick called out no one responded.
So after about 30 minutes I decided to take care of it myself, despite my mate telling me it was doomed from the start.
I build a box out of cardboard and duct tape and lined it with straws, but the bird (which I'd named "Kurczaczek" at this point - it means "tiny chicken" in Polish; M is from Poland and I asked her to translate it) weren't too happy about being in the box, but didn't object to sitting on my finger:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TBfinger.jpg
At this point it looked pretty satisfied, and even had the energy to clean itself and take a nap, so I can only assume it was doing fine.
Occasionally it'd wake up if I moved around too much, and immediately demand food, and I fed it.
As the night fell and I got more and more drunk, I thought about keeping the bird in my shirt pocket until I'd go to sleep, but the bird objected violently and we agreed on letting it sit on the zipper instead, and allow me to have both hands free.
Here it's taking a nap with its head under its wing:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/Arachnoholic/OUTDOORS%20STUFF/TBpocket.jpg
Around 5 o' clock in the morning dark clouds started rolling in, and I asked M to hold Kurczaczek while I went out with N and my trusty machete to get some dry wood for the bonfire, before everything got soaked.
When we got back M told me the bird had been sleeping all the time, and that she'd gently put it in the box without waking it up, and it was still sleeping when I checked on it later.
When I woke up it was lying dead on its side, and J picked out a hill top where we buried it, R.I.P Kurczaczek, at least you died with your belly full.
So, what the fuck do I do next time I find a tiny bird?
Naturally it'd be a good idea to ID the little bugger first, and I did all I could including contacting an ornithologist I know, but either a) the bird was doomed from the beginning, as my mate said, or b) I did something wrong.
According to the ornithologist the outcome was to be expected, but it looked like it was doing pretty good.
Don't bother answering if you think I might find your reply utterly stupid, no, I'm not going to just stomp on it or something similarly retarded, the reason I take care of these tiny creatures is because dying alone and hungry is a shitty way to go, and as I already have a fuckload of animals, another one isn't going to break my budget.
So, fire away, people.