Caring for a Baby Bird Day 2 Update

I wanted to post an update to the Weekend of Nature and Babies post I did earlier this week. If you read it then you know we are now caring for a stranded baby bird. He is starting to grow on me I think. I never was a bird person, I know friends who own birds as pets.  Their hands or arms are always covered in scratch or bite marks, some very deep and I often wondered what kind of person would put up with that? Why would you go through all that to keep birds? It must take a truly special personality to keep and care for a pet bird and love them as much as we love our cats and dogs.

This little bundle of fluff is very cute, and surprisingly trusting. He doesn't try to bite or peck at us at all. He is very calm around us and not afraid like I would have thought he would be. He is very gentle and, I'm starting to notice, smart. He knows what he wants and doesn't want, for instance today when offered the choice between bird seed or a dropper of baby food, he has been choosing the seed. Today is the first time I've introduced seeds to his diet, when he opens his mouth I would drop one in by hand, then offer the dropper of baby food or water to wash it down. He got the hang of it and then started refusing the dropper, but when I hovered by hand above his head he would open wide. Show him the dropper and he would close his mouth tight, show him my hand and again he opened wide. I'm completely amazed by this, I wouldn't have thought birds, especially baby ones, would be that intelligent.

Every day he eats a variety of baby food, apple & blueberry, pears & raspberries, apple & cherry, turkey & rice, a vegetable mix, oatmeal and more. We offer him a different flavor every feeding, which right now is every half hour to 45 min. I tell you it's like having a baby all over again. Round the clock feedings, little jars of baby food all throughout the fridge. We even have to heat the jars in a shallow pot of water on the stove to make it room temperature before feeding, reminds me of warming glass baby bottles when my kids were small. This experience has certainly been nostalgic if nothing else.

He is also hopping out of his nest and getting around the pen. Yesterday we took the lid off and had his pen sitting on the picnic table on the back porch so he could hear other birds and get some fresh air and sun. He sat up in his nest and started grooming himself and stretching his wings. It was so cute, I took a dozen photos, but posted some of the best. He was very active at that moment, and this morning was standing on the edge of his nest to make him self taller, so that the food would reach his mouth faster I guess. Hopefully he should be able to go it on his own soon. I'm waiting to see more signs of wing flapping and try to get him to take the seed from a small dish in his pen first.

I also have an update on the baby chipmunks found at the baby shower last weekend. They did go home with a family at the party. They have named them Alvin and Theodore and are feeding them milk formula by bottle. My husband works with the mom of the family that took them home so I will try to get more updates from time to time if I can.

Thank you all for stopping by.

Nicole