Wildlife rescue

It's baby songbird season, and the poor stupid things are everywhere. I call them stupid with a lot of affection. They hatch from tiny eggs, grow ridiculously fast, and are out of the nest in just a couple weeks. Fledglings like this one take the plunge out of the nest and then, unable to really fly, hop around like idiots while their parents fly down and stuff insect larvae into their gapes.

The mortality rate for songbird chicks is up to 75% for some species. As I often tell people, if they weren't supposed to die young, they would only lay two eggs. They get smart or they get dead, and they do it really quickly. Most songbirds are sexually mature after a year or two, if they make it that far they usually live 4 or 5 years total. Exceptional individuals can live 10 or 20 years. I'll state it again at the risk of overstating it: most die young, like within a month of the egg being laid.

In most cases, when a fledgling bird appears to be in distress, my advice is to try to forget about it. Probably the parents are nearby, but with or without their help the baby has a better than 50% chance of dying. Your help is not wanted nor required. But...

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3:00 snapshot #1304

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