So, I thought moths were beating on my kitchen window, went out to look and there was a small drab hummer. It looks like a baby. It landed in my hand, then zinnged and fell off. What can I do?
do you have a local Wildlife Rescue that you can call?
I can probably take it to the zoo tomorrow morning. If it is still alive. I called my vet and got voice mail.
I just picked it up off the ground. this bites. I want to help it, but I don’t know what to do. I’m sure it won’t survive the night in a carrier.
Mix up some sugar water. Recommended proportions are around 1 part sugar to 4 parts water, by volume. Heating the mixture will help dissolve the sugar - but make sure it’s cool before offering it to the bird.
And keep it warm and out of drafts. This is from my local wildlife rehab place.
StG
its now laying the bottom of the carrier, wings spread. there is a bowl of sugar water in the carrier and more sugar water in a rodent feeder. I think this won’t end up well.
Go to your local DNR website and look for wildlife rehabilitators.
I have a good friend who is one in Michigan, PM me if you can’t get help. Feeding baby birds can be tricky, and you can kill them if you don’t do it right.
StG, thank you for that link. this bird is fully feathered and was flying until it got worn out. The carrier is in the bathroom, door shut, cats not involved. Due to your link, I covered the carrier with a towel.
Im afraid that I will wake up to a dead bird. Poor thing, I’m doing my best.
Any update?
StG
I’m hoping for good news…
Bless you for trying.
It may be a little late for this, but when a hummer is so far gone it can’t fly you have to actually give the sugar water to it by hand. It won’t be able to feed itself otherwise.
I have brought many hummers which appeared virtually dead back by giving them sugar water in a spoon (or if available an eye dropper). Hold the hummer gently in one hand and the spoon or dropper with a little sugar water in it in the other. Stick the tip of the hummer’s bill in the sugar water. Often the tip of the tongue will be protruding. If so, the hummer will taste the sugar and start sticking its tongue rapidly in and out, lapping it up. If you can get it to do this for awhile so it gets enough sugar in it, it will eventually revive and fly off.
Sometimes a bird may be so far gone that it has its bill tightly closed and can’t taste the water. In this case I get a needle or pin and very gently pry the bill apart so that a little water can reach the tongue. If you can do this, again the bird will reflexively start lapping up the sugar water.
Once a hummer gets into this kind of moribund state, you probably won’t have time to get it to a vet or wildlife rehabilitator. They will often die within an hour or two. On the other hand, they may enter torpor and survive for a bit longer
I hope she makes it. (OP said the bird was “small and drab” so I’m guessing it’s a female.)
Too late to try to help now, so I’ll just share my hummer story.
My grandfather kept several hummer feeders on his front porch. Every night after dinner, he’d take his coffee out there and watch the birds feed before the sun went down. This went on for years and years.
One day, I was home (I lived with my mom & grandparents) from college and had rolled in somewhere around midnight. My mom was working 3-11 shift at the time and she rolled in right about the same time I did. We were scrounging around the kitchen looking for snacks and I wandered into the pantry where my Grandma kept her deep freeze. I open the freezer, hoping for ice cream or something, and I spotted this little plastic baggie with something kind of brown inside. Thinking I’d left my stash around the house and someone saved it in the freezer for me (LOL), I pulled the baggie out. Imagine my surprise when I realized there was a dead hummingbird in the freezer.
DZ: “Mom. WTF is this? Why is there a dead hummer in our freezer?”
Momzilla: “I have no idea. You’ll have to ask your grandfather in the morning.”
Next morning at breakfast, I waited until Grampa got down to his morning tea before I launched my interrogation. I ask Grampa wtf was up with the hummer in the freezer. Grampa laughed and told me he was sitting on the porch when he noticed this hummer just sitting still on the perch of the feeder. He said, “It was dead and you never get to see the little buggers when they hold still, so I kept him to show people.”
DZ: “So every time someone new walks into this house, you trot out your dead bird to show them?”
GrampaZilla: “Yep.”
Awesome.
Years later, when I was researching to plant a butterfly/hummingbird garden, I came across this little tidbit about hummers: Turns out they sleep. Grampa’s hummer (band name!) might not have been dead; it might have just been full of sugar water and took a little nap. But I’m sure it was dead after Grampa sentenced him to the deep freeze!
So, in honor of my dearly departed grandfather, I think, if the hummer didn’t make it, you should keep her to show people.
bumping this because I want to know how the little lady is doing!
Re-bumping because I do too (though I suspect the OP would have been back if the news was good ) and also to thank Colibri for posting such detailed instructions. Might not help in this case, but since hummingbirds are so fragile and time is so critical with them* this might help some other hummer in the future.
- Any given hummingbird at any given time is only a matter of hours away from starving to death. One of those nature facts that always stuck with me.