Tonight at work I opened the back door to take out the garbage and in walked/fluttered a ruby crowned kinglet. It’s very cold here right now and we’ve had days of snow so the poor little thing was probably freezing and disoriented.
I picked him up and put him in a box with a little dish of water, which he drank from immediately. After a few minutes of being covered and left alone, he tucked his little head under his wing and went to sleep. He’s currently on my counter waiting till the morning when I can take him to the wildlife rescue place down the road. He pooped a few times which made me feel good because I know he’s not starving, just cold and thirsty.
I’m not sure because I didn’t call the wildlife place for an update but I think he probably was ok. They’ll likely keep him for a week or so till they know he’s good to go and then they release them. He probably just needed some food and water and a break from the cold. It’s warmed up again to our normal winter temperatures.
I’d appreciate being educated as to what folk think is appropriate/necessary in terms of assistance to which species.
I’m not trying to threadshit, but it is not unusual for me to see birds and small mammals that look “under the weather.” But I would not think of trying to get the animals aid - I guess I might feel differently if they seemed to be really rare or something. But little animals ail and die all the time.
Just interested in what makes folk think differently than I.
My gf found a very young, comatose possum once, out in the cold. She cancelled our plans for the evening, set up an incubator, warmed it, eventually gave it some water with an eyedropper, etc. Our plans for the next day also were cancelled as she had me drive the now snarling thing to this place for further, more specialized care.
They called us daily with updates. I learned later that although I’d given a $20 voluntary donation when I left it, my gf had donated $100 with her credit-card when she called about me dropping it off (she didn’t think I’d leave a donation, which I was sad to learn).
The little guy was ready for release four days after she found it. I drove to the wildlife center, retrieved it, and we released it in our barn (where she’d originally found it). To me, possums are a bit of a pest species. I did what I did to help with it because it made my gf happy.
People are just wired differently. A little bird, cold and disoriented, makes its way inside. I would not think of opening the door and chucking it out into the pitch black to die. It took such little effort for me to pick him, put him in a box and take him to the rescue place. Why wouldn’t I do that?
I guess like you can’t really understand why someone would do that, I can’t understand why they would not.
I’m thinking of a couple of occasions when live birds made their way into houses I was in. I wouldn’t say I wanted to kill them, but I sure wanted them out of there. Not sure how much my opinion would change if it was cold and the bird seemed stressed.
