I recently received a WhatsApp call from a friend in North Vancouver about a bird that her tenants’ children had found in the middle of the road in front of their house.
She said it was injured and that it couldn’t fly. The children had put the bird in a shallow box with a small bowl of water. They asked if they could feed it, but my friend said, “no”, and that she would call me (in Ladner) for advice.
They showed me the bird on WhatsApp. It was sitting on the finger of one of the children not appearing distressed at all. It was a Black-capped Chickadee. It was alert, but seemed reluctant to fly as it hung onto the child’s finger.
I agreed that it was not a good idea to feed the bird because giving it the wrong food could make it ill.
My advice was just to leave it alone in the box on the porch and that it would probably fly off when it had recovered from its trauma.
We don’t know what happened to this little bird but within a few minutes it had flown from the box to a nearby bush.
The children were delighted!
Birds are sometimes reluctant to fly after a window collision, or they may be concussed. If there are no obvious signs of injury, it is best to put them somewhere safe and leave them to quietly recuperate.
Technology to the rescue!
With WhatsApp I was able to identify the Chickadee, assess its condition, and help my friend and the children take care of this lovely little bird.
Editor’s note: Nature Notes is a monthly column produced by the Delta Naturalists Society and their community partners. For information on monthly meetings and more, see www.deltanaturalists.org and www.facebook.com/deltanats/.
