Baby Bird Found

by Michelle Richards
(Townsville)

This morning we found a baby bird on the ground. It didn't seem to be harmed so my husband picked it up and brought it inside as we didn't know what to do with it.

We found a nice box and a warm blanket and with an eye dropper gave it some water which it took with no problems.

We have two kids who thought that the whole experience was great. We didn't let them pick the bird up but they enjoyed looking at it, and my daughter just had to go and tell the neighbors.

Once my daughter was at school, I got onto the net and found this website as I was concerned what we could do with the baby. He/she was calling and we knew it could fly (sort of).

So after reading your site, and realizing that I couldn't feed it every 15-20 mins I checked to see if the bird could grip my finger (which it could) and decided to move it into one of our native trees (as I couldn't find the nest).

It didn't seem to mind so I stayed outside to see what would happen. It started calling and before I knew it, one of the parents had come down to see it.

It flew off but came straight back and started to feed it!! Then I noticed there were the two parents flying around and down to the baby.

I took a photo of the happy event. We live in Townsville on the Ross River and often get all sorts of bird life (owls, egrets, magpie geese, pelicans).

This one is a flycatcher - I think it's the Satin Flycatcher (not sure, could be the Leaden Flycatcher. If anyone knows, please let me know).

NOTE:
I went out later in the morning to see how the baby was going. It was still in the same spot and seemed happy enough, busy preening itself.

I also found another baby in another tree across the road from our house, so it was nice to see another one. I still couldn't find the nest.