baby birds column

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

Cecil got scooped on this one. This was just addressed at snopes.com, the Urban Legends Reference Pages. Both articles are good, but you seem to have ommited one point, namely don’t mess with fledglings. I’ll excerpt the relevant bit:
…
Possibly this widespread caution against handling young birds springs from a desire to protect them from the many well-intentioned souls who, upon discovering fledglings on the ground, immediately think to cart them away to be cared for. Rather than attempting to impress upon these folks the real reason for leaving well enough alone (that a normal part of most fledglings’ lives is a few days on the ground before they fully master their flying skills), a bit of lore such as this one works to keep many people away from young birds by instilling in them a fear that their actions will doom the little ones to slow starvation. Lore is thus called into service to prevent a harmful act that a rational explanation would be much less effective in stopping.
…
So tell Jill to think twice before helping those baby birds.

Actual link is: http://www.snopes2.com/critters/wild/babybird.htm

Good work in advancing the cause against those foreign feline devils.

2

Welcome to the SDMB. A link to the column is appreciated. If you handle baby birds, will their parents shun them?

3

Keep in mind that Cecil’s columns are printed in the Reader and other newspapers a week before they go online, meaning his column first showed up on August 24th. The snopes article(found here was posted on August 27th, 3 days after Cecils column was printed. Who knows how long the research on the respective pieces was done however.

4

you dont know how thrilled i am to have cecil answer my question! (first one, too!)

happy to report not only the two birds evicted thrive, but the nest (i had to pull it out too) is being used again. i pulled it out carefully, and built a cardboard box to put it in, with only a small opening for mom and pop bird. i placed the box on the top of the fence post inside the dog pen (cats cant get to em, dogs dont want to). the “bird colony” at my place is thriving! the’re all over the place! (except in my gargage- i sealed up the entrys) before eviction, i had more birdshit on my car INSIDE THE GARAGE than if i parked it outside! now, we all are happy!

5

I was a little disappointed to see the assertion that birds won’t return to a nest that has been disturbed, due to “human stupidity.” What is the problem, do humans leave a stupidity scent that birds can smell? We need facts, not vague assertions.

6

I was quite happy to see Cecil tackle this question, as I’ve spent the past summer up to my ears in gaping baby birds at a wildlife rehabilitation center, and constantly field this question. I agree with dujo that the fledgling information would have been nice, or links to it, but column space being a precious commodity, the legal reason not to handle birds was important info as well.

The snopes article has good basic info and links about how to handle baby birds. Their source is Barbara Mikkelson, and Cecil’s is “my friend Barb”, so perhaps they are one and the same. Baby bird season is about over, so I hope both these columns can be rerun next May, when the onslaught begins again.

I’ve tried to find an origin of this myth, and so far haven’t come up with anything solid. Before the more recent developments in wildlife rehabilitation, the success rate in raising a baby bird was pretty dismal. They have to be fed an appropriate diet * every 20-30 minutes*, sun-up to sundown, or they won’t develop properly. Different species require different diets. That’s a pretty daunting schedule. It’s my paid job, and it’s still kind of insane and gruelling. Couple that with fractures, head trauma, wounds inflicted by other critters, and it’s a difficult process without knowledge.

Initially, too, a baby may be cold, in which case the parents won’t invest the energy to accept it back and raise it. If it’s not feathered, there is a good chance that the parents pushed it out of the nest because there was something wrong and the baby was not viable. In these two scenarios, it might lead people to think that it was a human scent that caused the parents to refuse the babies.

In any case, don’t ever try to raise a baby bird by yourself! If you miraculously manage to get it to adolescence, it still needs to get past imprinting on humans and socialized with others of the same species, or it doesn’t stand much chance of survival.

7

Cecil mentions that vultures do have a keen sense of smell.
Nevertheless, I can attest that they do not reject their chicks if handled by a human. I have a mother and two vulture (Coragyps atratus) chicks nesting in a barn. About a month ago I took one home and was thinking of making a pet of it. After a weekend of feeding it raw hamburger, I came to my senses and took it back to the nest.
I checked on them this afternoon, and they are both doing fine, neither apparently rejected by the mother.

8

Only some vultures - specifically the Turkey Vulture Cathartes aura and its close relatives the Greater and Lesser Yellow-headed Vultures - have a well developed sense of smell. Black Vultures, like most birds, seem to have a very poor sense of smell.

George Angehr

9

My baby bird story can be found in this thread.