Holding a bird safely (1 Viewer)

Hi guys,

I'm hoping that the wonderful and knowledgeable that you are can inform me and my wife. This is going to be an admission of guilt in some way.:-C

So there is this American Robin nest right next to my door. We had been monitoring it since we noticed it. Now this one chick was now two weeks old and could be seen standing in the nest. My wife wanted to take a picture, but in doing so startled the juvenile bird and it jumped out of the nest. It proceeded to jump around and trying to take flight in vain.

We weren't sure what to do, but we proceeded to catch it while holding it as gently as possible and put it back in its nest. A few hours later it's gone.

Apart from the obvious lesson we learned about getting in too close to take a picture, can you offer advice on our handling of the situation and a prognosis for this bird? We are worried that it might have been injured by being forced out of its nest early or us holding it; aside from the stress and commotion we caused.

Any reply is greatly appreciated; thank you!

Fabien

Don't worry - the adults will find it and take care of it. Once young birds in open nests (like American Robins) get to that sort of age they will leave the nest at any provocation - the startled response you got is designed to startle any potential predator.

Putting it back in the nest rarely works as they will leave as soon as they can because they now regard it as an unsafe location.

For the future it is ok to carefully monitor a birds nest (not more than once every 5-7 days) during the egg-laying, incubation and young chick stage - but if you do so when the young are over 2 weeks old then they will scatter from the nest for the reason above. Take great care not to move too much vegetation as birds like magpies, crows and grackles will watch for this as a means of finding the nest to feed on the eggs and chicks.

Sorry if any of this is stating the obvious!

Mick

Thank you for your answer Mick! We will be more responsible nest watchers next time thanks to you.

Best regards,