The short story: The starling has recovered and has flown off now!
The long story:
My friend, Soi Chee, found a fainted starling this evening and she panicked and asked me for advice. I quickly contacted two friends who know how to save birds.
This was at 4.56pm today.
I have the consent of one of these friends to share the following with hopes that the knowledge will be useful for educational purpose.
Photos of the starling published with Soi Chee’s consent.
The advice from my bird-rescuer friend:
That is a starling. It is a young bird, almost matured. Please dont try to handle it so much cause it might die of fright (heart attack).
If it flew into the glass panel & fainted, just let it be. Since it has already woken up, let it go. If the birds do not die from hitting the glass, they will survive. If they keep handling it, the poor bird will die of fright. It is merely dazed. Put the bird outside, somewhere safe. in the shade. It will slowly recover from the daze and fly off.
Since she has put the towel on top of the box, leave it be. Dont distress the bird further. The poor bird is probably frightened and hence crawled under the towel. Let it rest. Dont peek under the towel else the poor bird will be more distressed. Hopefully the bird didnt have a bad concussion and will recover.
If a bird hits the glass very hard, the impact usually breaks their neck and they die on the spot. It is pretty much like a human walking into glass. if the hit was hard, you will pass out. Just let it recover from the fright.
If there were broken bones, if on the wing which usually is unlikely, then the bird might hop around after recovery, unable to fly off. Then just leave some water for the bird. But at this time, please minimize any interaction. The bird is terrified. I am worried any more handling, it might just die of a heart attack. Let it be for now.
She can peek into the box in the morning. that is, make noise before approaching the box. if the bird is in the box, then she will not startle it. but I do believe it would have flown off by then. I hope no cats and dogs around?
Soi Chee had already caged her dogs, and her cat in totally indoors.
When Soi Chee first picked up the bird, she dripped water into its beak to hydrate it.
By the way, why were they dripping water into the bird? From the video, the bird was terrified.
Usually never a good idea to handle birds that accidentally bang into glass panels. If they passed out, take them to a safe space in the garden for them to recover. Handling them terrifies them even more. Once they wake up, even more so to not touch them. Hopefully little birdy will be ok.
Many people mean well. Totally understand your friend’s reaction. Unfortunately, at times, the “rescue” makes matters worse 😞.
Just as we were texting, and I was acting as the middle-person passing the information from the bird rescuer to Soi Chee, Soi Chee texted that the birdy has flown off, nice and strong!!
This was at 5.54pm this evening. So the birdy took more than an hour to recover before she took flight into the skies again!
All’s well that ends well!
Now, let’s hope we all have learnt something from this.
Leave a Reply