As nestlings get bigger, nest location causes concern (1 Viewer)

[bredlo]

Hi all, first post here from a longtime admirer of birds... with no experience.

A pair of house finches recently built a nest in a hanging plant on our porch. Five eggs - and now five nestlings - later, Mom and Dad are taking turns feeding, babies opened their eyes yesterday, and fur is quickly becoming feathers!

Here's the 2-part problem: The nest hangs six feet above our concrete patio of our 2nd floor apartment. Once these babies become fledglings and leave the nest, I'm stumped as to how they'll learn to forage, fly, and survive... when there's a steep, open-back staircase separating them from the rest of the world.

We'd love any advice you have to share, from whether or not to put a blanket under the nest to cushion that first leap, to whether we should be prepared to intervene when they're standing on our porch, looking confused.

(Photo from April 7th; they're twice that size today, 8 days later)

 

[Hazelpap]

Hi Bredlo,
I used to work for a wildlife rescue, I think your fledglings will probably be just fine. While falling two stories onto concrete sounds pretty scary for us, when you are a tiny sparrow fledgling with only a few grams of mass, the force of the impact from that height shouldn't be enough to break bones. Think about wood ducklings leaping from their nests. When your fledglings do start to take the plunge, do not try to put them back in the nest, this will cause all the others to abandon ship. Mom and Dad will continue to feed them if they still need support where ever they are but they fledged rapidly. If you're worried about domestic predators, you can place them somewhere high but if they're at fledgling age they might not want to stay and in the end, you can't protect them from everything. Hope that helps!