What was I thinking?

brood in the easvestrough, 2007

Well, as a trained hospice volunteer, I thought I'd simply give the baby robin some lunch, and nurse him till s/he died. His/her sibling bounced off into the forest, but this little guy, with blood dripping from his punctured eye, seemed to have been kicked out of the nest early. Some birds, certain species of Cuckoo, lay their eggs in nests, and the larger babies grow larger than the robins, hurt them, and eat all the food.

Other baby robins die from predators; blue jays are fierce, as well as fishers, raccoons, and the like.
When I was a student teacher at MacSkimming Outdoor Science School, we trapped and banded birds. One day I spotted a blue jay reaching through the cage trap, pecking at the remains of a chickadee it had killed. The jay outside the cage, the chickadee inside. Truly. My associate teacher asked if I'd gotten the band back on the chickadee. I rushed back out into the snow to find it! It's a dog eat dog world out there!

Doggie water dish = 2nd nest
-he poops over the edge onto the tray

First nest = storage container!

I read that only 25% make it to one year. I've looked out over my back lawn and counted 14 robins on spring day. They are ubiquitous on our 16 acres!

The parent send them out of the nest, at different times, and continue feeding them. Sort of a demand feeding schedule, once every 15 minutes or so after a couple of WEEKS of age! Babies cheep and beg for food all day long. The parents make 400 trips a day, dawn till dusk, feeding babies. Born naked and vulnerable, they grow very quickly.

From the first day, when he sat on his ankles, with one eye looking out for dangling worms, and barely able to stay awake, he's now able to sit on a branch.

Now, it is illegal in North America to take in wild birds. There are several centres that do take hurt or abandoned  birds. The late Kathy Niehi's Wild Bird Care Centre is one spot. Another is Wing and a Prayer Bird Rehabilitation Centre, or Muskoka Wildlife Centre. I'm sure you can find one near to you!

My curtain climbers love the cage

In my self-defense, I truly didn't think this guy would live very long. Hubby went to the vet and they looked up baby robins in their book: kitten food, oatmeal pablum, 1" cut up worms after a week.


What goes in, must come out. My buddy, Batman (not Robin), ate 19 worms yesterday. The kitten canned food seemed to give him the runs. The worms are great.

Can we play?

When he poops, if he is in the doggy water dish on the nest of dried grass, he'll back up on his ankles, raise his bum in the air, and vent the poop off the side. With no feathers around his *cloaca, he doesn't get as messy as he might. Now, we're calling him a 'he', but I can't figure out which sex he is. It's just easier this way!~

What was also easier, was to put him in the dog cage we bought to move two cats in 2003. Our rescue cats, Mitz and Max, couldn't be picked up and we had to trap them to move them.  His projectile poop lands on the newspaper and makes for easier clean up.

They play fight, stop to clean a paw,
not necessarily their own, and fall asleep.

The twins, Buster and Felix, think Batman is fascinating, especially when I put him on the branch. He'll tweet for food. Batman is more easily fed on the branch. If he misses the worm I can catch it without losing it in the grass below. Then, sated, his eye closes, he falls asleep doing the subway head nod. Next thing he begins to fall over, flaps his wings desperately, and upside down drops to the nest below.

Now, his big learning curve: learning to perch. He sits on the branch in his cage and does the subway nod. You've seen it. People opposite you on the train or the bus. Heads nod. Only issue, he falls off his perch. I was taking photos when it happened. Here is the series!

going...

going

going...

lost the battle

flat on his back!

I've had a cold, tenosynovitis in my foot, a pinched nerve in my neck, and have been limited in what I can do, physio's orders! This has been great fun.

I figure if a mommy robin can raise them, I've raised three kids to adulthood, I oughtta be able to do this! He sleeps when it is dark, eats, doesn't need burping, and no diapers.

I have wonderful helpers who think they might like to taste worms. My 'helpers' are keen on anything that moves, even the cursor on the computer. Buster managed to tell the computer to print his 2nd day here. They sleep in Oliver's bedroom. Happy as clams.


*In zoological anatomy, a cloaca is the posterior opening that serves as the only such opening for the intestinal, reproductive, andurinary tracts of certain animal species.