ClaudiusMaximus
Newbie
hello, and thanks for the help for a very young bird caught by a friend's cat
I was at a party at my friend's house and his cat brought in a baby bird - we chased the cat away and after a while the bird started moving again, and it appeared to be uninjured. I took the bird home in a cardboard boxed filled with torn newspaper, and warmed it with a desk lamp. The bird (I'll call it Donnie Dodo because that's the first type of bird I could think of when I got my first good look at it) crawled about a bit and made itself comfortable under a scrap of newspaper.
I fed Donnie a little bread dipped in rainwater, and some water, using the tube of a cotton bud as a dripper. Then later I dipped a small bit of bread in a tiny amount of honey and Donnie eagerly sucked the honey from the bread. I gave more water at hourly intervals.
Currently the little fellow is keeping warm in my shirt pocket, emitting a little whistle now and then, I'm going to feed Donnie some more bread and honey after I post this.
I don't know what species Donnie is, can someone help identify? I'm a complete bird newbie, I took Donnie from the party because no one else gave a damn.
I'm going to try to attach some photos I took, but I've never used a forum like this one before so it might not work.
Donnie is has very fine yellow feathers, with dark grey/pink skin underneath. The eyes are still closed shut. The beak is dark apart from the very tip which is yellow. The bottom half of the beak is a little wider than the top half, especially at about a third of the way from the tip. The beak has two patches which open for breathing, when I gave Donnie some water he blew a couple of bubbles through them (I guess I gave too much at once from my little hard-to-control dropper tube).
The legs have no feathers towards the bottom, and the feet have three toes at the front and one at the back, they seem to be able to grip something about the thickness of a pencil. The tip of the toes have little pale spikes on, like the beginnings of claws.
Donnie has little stubby wings about 1.5cm long.
There is a wetland area about half a mile away, I don't know if a cat would go that far to catch a bird and then bring it all the way back relatively unharmed.
The surroundings are suburban gardens in South East London, UK - trees, bushes, flowers.
So, does anyone know what it is? And how can I best care for Donnie from now 7am until 1:30pm which is when the nearest animal rescue center opens its phone lines? Should I take Donnie to a vet before then? S/he whistlechirps every so often, and quite vigorous at moving about although s/he stretches one leg more than the other so maybe one of them is hurt.
I was at a party at my friend's house and his cat brought in a baby bird - we chased the cat away and after a while the bird started moving again, and it appeared to be uninjured. I took the bird home in a cardboard boxed filled with torn newspaper, and warmed it with a desk lamp. The bird (I'll call it Donnie Dodo because that's the first type of bird I could think of when I got my first good look at it) crawled about a bit and made itself comfortable under a scrap of newspaper.
I fed Donnie a little bread dipped in rainwater, and some water, using the tube of a cotton bud as a dripper. Then later I dipped a small bit of bread in a tiny amount of honey and Donnie eagerly sucked the honey from the bread. I gave more water at hourly intervals.
Currently the little fellow is keeping warm in my shirt pocket, emitting a little whistle now and then, I'm going to feed Donnie some more bread and honey after I post this.
I don't know what species Donnie is, can someone help identify? I'm a complete bird newbie, I took Donnie from the party because no one else gave a damn.
I'm going to try to attach some photos I took, but I've never used a forum like this one before so it might not work.
Donnie is has very fine yellow feathers, with dark grey/pink skin underneath. The eyes are still closed shut. The beak is dark apart from the very tip which is yellow. The bottom half of the beak is a little wider than the top half, especially at about a third of the way from the tip. The beak has two patches which open for breathing, when I gave Donnie some water he blew a couple of bubbles through them (I guess I gave too much at once from my little hard-to-control dropper tube).
The legs have no feathers towards the bottom, and the feet have three toes at the front and one at the back, they seem to be able to grip something about the thickness of a pencil. The tip of the toes have little pale spikes on, like the beginnings of claws.
Donnie has little stubby wings about 1.5cm long.
There is a wetland area about half a mile away, I don't know if a cat would go that far to catch a bird and then bring it all the way back relatively unharmed.
The surroundings are suburban gardens in South East London, UK - trees, bushes, flowers.
So, does anyone know what it is? And how can I best care for Donnie from now 7am until 1:30pm which is when the nearest animal rescue center opens its phone lines? Should I take Donnie to a vet before then? S/he whistlechirps every so often, and quite vigorous at moving about although s/he stretches one leg more than the other so maybe one of them is hurt.
Attachments
Last edited: