Bird Trauma

Another week of work completed, I’m home catching up and not yet thinking of what to write for my blog, when an incident happened.

This (my favorite bird) little chestnut-backed chickadee hit one of our windows.

We’ve been living here almost 12 years now and thus have had many birds hit our windows over these years. I have found that if I can upright the bird as soon as possible, it has a great chance of surviving. Usually I put on gloves quickly or grab a towel, but this time there wasn’t time to do that.

If the bird is on its back or even its side, more than likely it will die. My little guy here was on his side, so I very gently got a hold of him from around the top of his wings and his back and placed him atop of the deck railing. Even better is a tree branch, but there wasn’t one close by and I try to handle the bird as little as possible.

He is a tiny bird – the size of a small egg – yet lighter.

Crazy as this may seem, I talk to the bird for a little bit. Then I step back and silently pray that he will be okay. Keeping my eye on this little guy, he sat there for about 10 minutes and then flew off. I quietly took this picture as he was recovering.

Happy ending.