Barrett the Bird Man

This past Monday my roommate came up the stairs to our apartment and announced that he had almost ran over a baby bird on his bike. Naturally, I wanted to go check it out. We went outside and watched the bird for a while- it was screaming it's little head off and who we thought was the mother, was flying around frantically. Barrett looked up and around for a nest that this little fellow may have fallen out of, but none could be found. So, Barrett put on some gloves, got a box and after some wrangling, scooped up the bird and put him in the box. We called around for about 30 minutes to find out where we could take the bird and finally got someone on the phone that could help us. The woman we got on the phone was a volunteer with the Audubon Society and gave us some great tips that I will share with you now:1) Its usually best to get a baby bird connected back with it's mother
2) Fledgling birds often fall out of their nests when they start hopping around and try to fly for the first time
3) Feeding a baby bird anything to eat is never a good idea- some birds eat insects, some seed, the best food comes from the mother.
4) Many communities have a 24-hr. vet clinic and usually have contacts for wildlife refuges, clinics, and volunteer foster parents for birds, squirrels, etc.
5) In our case, we were told to put a hanging basket filled with tissue up in the tree where we thought the bird came from and put him in it. We were told that 9 times out of 10 the mother would come back and take care of it.

We did exactly what the woman told us to do- well, sort of. Barrett used his shoe laces and a fruit basket to rig a hanging basket. He put the bird in the basket, hung it up and then we went inside. I think around 2 hrs. went by and he checked the basket and the bird was gone and nowhere to be found, so the fate of our little friend is unknown, but we did the best we could.

I wanted to find out what kind of bird it was so I looked at many many baby bird pictures online and I beleive based on looks alone, that we were dealing with a baby Robin. It was great to see Barrett care so much for it, not that it was a suprise, because he is such a caring person in general.