Baby bird season is incoming and I’d like to remind everyone that birds do not have a significant sense of smell. Bird parents will not reject birdlets because you have handled them.
If you see smol birbs with few or no feathers on the ground, you can safely put them back into their nest, bird parents will still care for them.
If you see smol birbs with some or most feathers on the ground, please leave them there, as bird parents are probably nearby watching and feeding.
nakey bird = accidentally fell out, is cold and scared, put back in nest! if you can’t reach the nest, try to put it on a wide branch or fork so predators can’t get at it as easily.
scruffy feather bird = starting to try the fly thing, not very good at it. only put in nest/branch if predators abound, i.e. you have four outdoor cats and they’re licking their chops.
fluffy feather bird = smol fly guy! do nothing. can probably get away from predators and will flip its shit if you pick it up.
Reblogging this because I’d always heard the ‘Don’t touch a distressed bird its mom will reject it’ thing treated as fact before now, I didn’t realise it wasn’t true…
Spring is coming, time to reblog this again.
an equally friendly reminder to not let your cats and dogs near downed woodland animals. The bacteria they carry can be very harmful and a dog that’s gentle and sweet with you is likely to consider a baby bird as a tasty mouthful.
Also reminder that having outdoor cats is terrible for the environment and decimates native bird populations and can spread diseases so don’t do that
