Triplet Aviary Happiness! And we may have some boys!

Hello Triplet Birdie fans-

Sadly I hit the dang delete button on my phone and lost the Triplet's first pictures in their Aviary mansion! Ggrrr!! It's not easy to take good pictures of them anymore, as they are so flitty, flighty and busy and their cage is facing a big window. They appear to love their BIG aviary mansion house and are eating up a storm everyday and taking darling little birdie baths. Wow, do they eat a lot! The floor around them is a "seed carpet"... so we've decided to use the fabric cover we use at night for warmth, also as a lower cage curtain during the day. Who knew 3 little rescued sparrows would eat so much, and their split seed hulls would be sprinkling our floor like a dull glitter carpet. I'll get pictures up soon of The Triplets in their aviary mansion!

Devlopmentally, the Triplets, aka Trippies aka Trips (they chirp back to all my silly little nick-names for them), are doing great! It's so interesting how I think I "taught" First Birdie how to take her first drinks of water and learn to take a bird bath, peck for seeds, etc. But the Triplets seemed to just learn on their own and mimic each other's actions. But of course this makes sense, as First Birdie didn't have any sparrows to observe, learn from, mimic or imprint to, but the 3 Triplets would just do whatever each other did, and just by bird instinct/internal "wiring" figured out what to do by watching/interacting with each other. We of course created the perfect learning environment for them, as when they were weaning from the hand feeding, there was an endless supply of seed, spray millet and a shallow amount of water in the little trough. Ah, nature never ceases to amaze and enthrall me!

The Triplets are molting a bit and loosing their baby feathers. I think I see some black chest feathers coming in on one or two, so I'm thinking (hoping a bit) that at least one will be a boy! They don't stay still long enough for me to really study them, and they do look so much alike, it's not easy to differentiate them. Their innate flee and flight button works too perfectly in this case! They will perch quietly though, and move closer to me when I do repetitive, high pitched familiar words (birdie, birdie, birdie; babies, babies, babies; Triplets, triplets, triplets; Trips, trips, trips). No doubt, I Am The Bird Momma!

Here's some great pictures of the difference between male and female sparrows.

These are NOT my Birdies! Found these online:

Female, right. Male, left

 

 Male showing the beautiful black beard feathers

 Female with her soft beige tones

Male with his dramatic darks

What an experience this has been! I do feel really bad, and sad, they were abandoned or not initially cared for properly by their sparrow parents, but they are as happy as can be with us. 

It's so interesting, as all three of the Triplets have deformed feet! Two with a middle foot turned upward and the claw sticks up too. Cute but sad. All of them have one foot curled inward too. So perhaps "Mother Nature" "knew something"? I can somewhat tell them apart from their little deformities. Otherwise, they are perfect! It will be much easier knowing who's who if they're not all beautiful tawny, fawny, beige girls. But if they are, 4 sparrow girls in our house is just fine with us!

Miss First Birdie is PERFECT! Unbelievable after her fall 7-8' fall and subsequent damaged twisted neck. No permanent injuries, and everything about her perfectly functional and perfectly perfect!!! Since she was raised singularly, she is quite a bit more bonded to us and we let her free fly around still. Can you imagine the AMOUNT OF POOP if we let all 4 fly about the house! First Birdie's condo is not anywhere near the size of the Triplet's aviary mansion, so we feel a bit more guilty for her being caged. But the funny thing is, we open the door to her cage daily, and most days she doesn't even come out, as she's so content in her house. And when she does come out, she flies to us to check in, gets a treat, flits around a bit, and then goes back to her house. It's cute how the Triplets start chirping and chattering when First Birdie flies out, so this sure lets us know that there's definitely a relationship and communication between the 4 of them, but it seems that First Birdie is not at all interested in getting close (in physical proximity) to the Triplets.

Here she is visiting with Jim, and leaving him a "present" on his shoulder!

Have you ever seen such perfectly beautiful, perfect feathers!

We call these "love droppings" 

First Birdie loves to come visit and perch on us

but she's not interested in being held

 Just look at that perfect Birdie with her perfect feathers and perfect feet!

We just looooooooooooove all 4 of our Birdies! They are so adorable and so happy. They chirp and tweet back and forth to each other, but First Birdie doesn't ever fly close to the Triplet's house. 

They also chirp and tweet endlessly, especially when there's lots of human chatter in the house and the TV is on. This must be from when they were babies, and closer to the TV, thus they are bonded to the human voice as part of their "flock". 

We still feed them the moistened dog kibble baby food for protein, and they have an endless variety of seeds, millet sprays, fresh water, sandpaper covers to file their beaks on, and various perches to perch on and mirrors to play with.

They enrich our lives so much, and even though we lament what happened to them, and know the outside natural environment would have been most ideal for them, their safe inside aviary mansion is the next best thing!

My dear friend and amazing artist Kathy

made this beautiful birdie painting for me!

Pictures of Triplets coming soon!!

Chirp Chirp, Tweet Tweet :)

Triplet Success! Happy One Month Birthday to the Triplet baby Sparrows!

Just to recap: one month ago, July 31, one little tiny newborn baby sparrow fell out of it's nest and luckily fell onto our make-shift "Birdie-Slide-chair". The next day, 2 more babies were rescued from what appeared to be an abandoned nest. In case you missed my previous post, here's the "Triplet's" rescue story.!!

Below is their rapid development (in pictures) over just one month! From featherless, totally dependent babies, to fully feathered, now almost completely independent sparrows! We still hand feed them, but just this week (the last week of August 2014), they have fully discovered how to eat seed, peck millet sprays, drink from the water dish and even take mini bird baths! So adorable!

It has been a miraculous, magical developmental transformation to observe and be a part of! Such an incredible experience for us, which not everyone would be up for, as no doubt, these sweet little sparrows absolutely consumed my life this past month. Raising 3 "Triplets" was quite different that raising singular "First Birdie" last year!

So we now have 4 sparrows that are completely "imprinted" and bonded to us. Everyone asks if, when, we will set them free. But think about it... they don't know "what they're missing" outside!They actually have NO idea what we as humans visually and intellectually know about their "natural environment". These little Triplets (and First Birdie) only know us and our house. We believe it would actually be quite cruel to set them free, as they don't have any fear of humans, dog barks, cat meows, other birds, etc. We've considered eventually moving their big aviary cage outside and acclimating them that way... and who knows... maybe one day opening the cage door and letting them come and go, while always providing them food, water and shelter. But these little sparrows will have a wonderful life with us, and I don't think we will ever risk letting them become hawk or cat appetizers!

Here's a pictorial of the Triplet's amazing development

over just One month!

 From featherless and totally Dependent

to

a surprise fledgling Flight, at just 2 weeks old!

 They will soon be transitioned to a large aviary-type cage

which will be right in our family room!

Did I mention how messy 3 little birdies are... and the poop! 

Oh my goodness, the amount of poop

3 sweet sparrows produce!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Back at the beginning of August, 2014

Day 3, L to R- "Little", "Biggie", "Middle"

Hungry babies! You can see the their full craws

Look at the feathers already coming in! "Biggie" is in the center

Wow  perfect feathers emerging so fast!

All eyes open! Feather beginning to flutter

 Wow! woke up to 2 babies out side the little nest, 

but of course I had the little nest inside a larger pet carrier container nest!

More feathers each day! So incredible!

Feeding time!

L to R- Little, Middle, Biggie

Look at all those fuzzy feathers! About 2 weeks old

Biggie learning to stand!

L to R:

Day 9 and Day 1

Look who's on Jim's shoulder!

First Birdie (as we now call her)

is not quite sure who all these little chirpers are!

But she doesn't seem to mind them

She just watches them, but doesn't really chirp to them.

 Look at all those feathers! 

L - R: Biggie, Little, Middle

Just before the took flight the next day and shocked us!

 First Birdie herself!

She's thinking about pecking my earrings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 And just like that! 

A mere 2 weeks after the Triplets came into our life

They suddenly took flight and quickly graduated 

to their mini-transitional cage!

3 sweet little birdies in a row!

The Triplets discussing their new real estate!

Perfect feathers!

 And I was SO excited when the Triplets learned
to eat from a mini spoon, and we no longer had to
feed them from the tweezers! Jim called the spoon
"the shovel" as they became ravenous eaters!
They now are gradually lessening their desire for
"baby food" and primarily eating bird seed!

We are Successful sparrow "parents" !

What an amazing adventure this has been! The Triplets are very ready now to be transitioned to the big aviary cage . It's really big, but we wanted them to have the most flight room possible, knowing that they'll most likely be living with us forever in this "5 star birdie condo". I just need to figure out a cover (which will probably be an entire bolt of fabric!) Don't laugh... here it is! That's a lot of flight room for these lucky little Triplets! (and maybe First Birdie one day...)

Just this past week, they began to really eat bird seed, flit and fly around the little mini-cage, discovering the water dish, and now deliberately venturing in and taking little bird baths and then preening their feathers! I didn't want to transition them to the Aviary until I was certain they were eating and drinking on their own.

This has been a wonderful experience for all of us, but please be aware it is not easy to successfully raise baby wildlife! Too many well intentioned people "rescue" baby animals when they don't need "rescuing". If so many baby sparrows hadn't fallen out the nest on our porch (to their death) over the past couple of years, we never would have gotten involved. Mother Nature truly is the best Mother of her young... but if necessary- knowledgeable, loving, caring humans can be the next best thing.

http://www.starlingtalk.com/babycare.htm

http://www.wildlifehotline.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/NonNative-Birds-How-To.pdf

Unbelievable! More baby Sparrows!!

I kid you not!!
Our little doggie Hanna sniffed out and alerted me to yet ANOTHER BABY SPARROW that had fallen (or been pushed) from the nest!

July 30, 2014

Same story (see my first blog post), same scenario (same nest on our front porch), same (me) jumping into action to rescue this sweet little baby at 11:30 at night, who's eyes were not even open. But unlike the baby that fell out last month, this one looked pink and healthy, although tiny and a bit skinny. I think it may have hatched that day, not really been fed much and then fell out this past Wednesday night! Thank goodness the "birdie slide" worked!!

The next morning, I strained my ears to see if I could hear any additional plaintive chirps from the disastrous fail of a nest... and yes... to my sadness and frustration, I did...
We had intended to take the nest down months ago, when it was abandoned, but life just got too busy and time passed quickly and here we are now with one tiny newly hatched baby fallen and the potential for another or others too also... ugh, so heartbreaking! My hope always is that nature does what nature is intended to do, and NO human intervention is needed!

Jim and debated and agonized over the decision to just let "nature take it's course" again... or to try to "save" the remaining baby/babies in the nest. But I knew I would be so unsettled knowing there was a possibility of new little lives suffering in an abandoned nest... if that was the case. We watched all day to see if there were any parents coming to the nest to feed. Didn't see any.
I even cleaned the parent poop off the chair (aka "Birdie Slide) to see if parents had come to feed, but we didn't see any recent poop indicating recent visits.

So we made the decision to go up and investigate. The nest was actually quite well constructed, and had probably been there for years and years and it had probably been a super successful nest for years and years, as babies only started falling out last year when "original" Birdie was rescued. So I gloved and masked up, and began taking the nest apart. All was quiet and I was worried the other baby/babies had already died. But to my surprise, 2 little babies slipped out into the box I had under the nest to catch the nest parts and potential babies.

At this point, I realized why all these babies had been able to slip out of the nest. It was well constructed deep into the eve of the house, but over time, one side of it must have developed a hole or weak side, allowing so many babies to fall out. My heart broke when I met these 2 additional siblings to the baby that fell out the night before. I wanted so much for the nest to be empty, and I wouldn't have to intervene with nature. But, this agenda immediately changed, and I rushed them into the house to join the other baby.

July 31, 2014

And so the round the clock, every 30-40 minute feedings began! I was so happy though to be able to join first fallen baby (the youngest and skinniest one) with it's siblings! It's beyond adorable to see them all snuggle and cuddle together for warmth and companionship. Ah, the family is back together and they have a chance at survival.
Off I went to crush into a mush, the "magic kibble" that saved First Birdie's life. It's the high protein baby sparrows desperately need to survive and thrive and it sure did the trick for First Birde! She's so healthy and happy and we still hand feed her this everyday! Sadly most well intentioned humans try to give baby birds water and human type foods, and they wind up starving or killing them. Not only was I Pre-Vet in my early college years, I read a lot online when I first rescued First Birdie. Here's a great site for anyone who might find a baby bird. Although many humans are well intentioned, they "rescue" Fledgelings" on the ground that are learning to fly, but look lost, yet are being cared for by their parents.

So I better end this post, as my new 3 babies are chirping (again :) and need to be fed! They're doing fine, and I will post another picture of them with their mouths agape successfully eating. It's not an easy task for a human to intercede on nature's perfection. I wish I didn't have to, and the babies were all happily nestled in their nest with their parents, with no chance of falling out... but that wasn't the case, so we will nurture and take care of these sweet little guys forever, if necessary. But my hope, since there are 3 of them, that we can eventually set them free... Already planning an aviary in the barn to protect them as they learn to adapt to the wild world... but don't panic, that won't be for a long time!

Their snuggle positions are so adorable!!!

Oh No! Another Baby Bird Falls from the Nest

Dear Sparrow Parents of "Birdie"-

I really do love sparrows!! And I really love and appreciate all that you do to build your nest and attempt to raise your little baby sparrows...

But I certainly don't appreciate how you seem to "let" your babies fall or you "push" your babies out of the nest!!! Not sure if you are "bad" parents, or if "nature is taking it's course" and only "the fittest will survive". And because of your "nest issues", Mr and Mrs Sparrow I had even set a chair under your nest, in case one of your babies fell again!!! Ashley named it the "baby bird slide", and we hoped it would never be used!

So Not kidding... exactly One Year, One Month, One Week to the day of Birdie's death Fall to Life... our little doggie Hanna AGAIN sniffed something on the front porch, calling my attention to yet ANOTHER several days old baby bird that fell out of the nest--- this dysfunctional nest!!! Again, it was late at night, I was tired when I let Hanna out for her final "pee" for the night... and I did not at first notice the little helpless blob on the porch.

But I suddenly and intuitively did a double take, flicked on the porch light... and not kidding... there lay an almost lifeless days old little sparrow AGAIN, who unluckily fell or was pushed out of the nest. The SAME NEST!!! Most likely, same parents!!

Ok, sparrow parents... you are fired as parents! I can't take this anymore... your nest will be coming down, and the opening in the eave of the porch will be sealed. No more babies to fall to their death here, any more!

Sadly, this little one did not enjoy the same fate as Birdie :'/
When I picked this one up, it was much more lifeless than Birdie was when I found her.
This one seemed awfully skinny and it's skin was more of a pale yellow hue, rather than the pink skin Birdie had when I found her that fateful night.

Daja vu! I brought baby #2 inside, warmed it in my hand, created a little nest as I had done with Birdie, and gave it a little moist cat food. It's mouth was open, wanting the food, and made many plaintive chirps...
But I just sensed something wasn't right about this one, and I was cautious about  expecting it's survival. I knew I would know the answer in the morning.
I left notes for Scott and Jim, knowing they would be up before me, and would be shocked to hear the little chirps, if it survived the night...

And survive the night it did! But when I got up to feed the poor little thing... it just didn't look well. It was weak and not opening it's mouth for food. My heart broke for this little life, that never really had a chance. My heart broke, knowing I had the skill to save it, but something preceding me, changed it's fate... and this sweet little baby quietly passed on, never to know life, flight, and love...

Retrospectively, I recalled hearing plaintive chirps from the nest 1-2 days before I found baby #2. I was surprised when I had heard little chirps late at night. That didn't seem "normal". I remember thinking... hhhmmm, strange there's what sounds to be a singular baby chirp, and the nest was awfully quiet. I remember I thought how strange it was to hear this in late June, and I hadn't seen many sparrows around the porch during the day recently.

My theory is that Birdie's parents did successfully raise their 2014 clutch, and everyone happily flew off. But there must have been this late-laid egg, that tragically hatched after Mr and Mrs Sparrow flew off, and this little baby was born alone, left alone, and was probably never fed until I found it. And that was too late. My heart hurts thinking I heard the little one up there, but "assumed" mom and dad were caring for baby. I NEVER intentionally interfere with nature. So it never occurred to me to check on the little chirps, as I was certain mom and dad must be caring for it. Now, I wish I had gotten a ladder and checked that day after I heard the plaintive little chirps at an unnatural time of the night...

Sorry Baby #2. Sorry nature did not provide for you this time. Sorry timing was not right with your hatching. Sorry you never had a chance to grow and develop, feel a full craw and belly, fly with the wind, take little bird baths, and flit with your family. My heart breaks for your fate, and the circumstances of your fall I will never know...

 This is an online image

NOT of Baby #2

But to give you an idea of his/her size

Fortunately this one is pink and healthy!!!

Happy 1st Birthday to Birdie!

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY BIRDIE!!

Exactly One year ago Birdie hatched from her egg in her "natural" wild sparrow nest on our porch eave, unbeknown to us.
Sometime later (a day or hours later) she fell (or was pushed) out of her sparrow nest and fell to her almost death on our front porch. That fateful fall intersecting with our lives, began our life changing "Adventures of Raising Baby Birdie".
 Birdie's life with us began around 11:15pm one year ago today, May 20, 2013.

She has grown and developed into a perfect and beautiful female sparrow, who undeniably is a member of our human family!

Her antics in her cage and out, never cease to amaze and enthrall us. She is very imprinted and bonded to us, as when she fell from the nest, her eyes weren't open and she only had bird skin, no feathers.
She communicates with us with different pitched chirps, and when we call her name ("Birdie, Birdie"), she chirps in response.
When we let out of her condo-cage to free-fly, she perches on our shoulders, pecks at us and is interested in sampling what we're eating (fruit and biscotti are her faves!)

When she's free flying in the house, she stays in the area we are in, and knows her cage is her home-base.
Some of the funniest places she hangs out are on the bookshelves with our family pictures. She spends hours perched on our pictures and pecking at the various human faces.

She NEVER flies near the windows or doors, and has never tried to escape outside.
We bring her outside on the front porch in her cage, and she loves being in the sun and fresh air, communicating with her "natural" sparrow family members.

Happy first birthday Birdie! You have brought so much joy into our lives, and your story of survival is nothing less than a miracle! In saving your life, you have enriched our lives in ways you will never know.

This picture says it all!

Happy Birthday little domesticated "wild" sparrow!

We love you so much!

I'm almost One Year old!!! Look at me!

It's hard to believe that Birdie's ONE YEAR survival birthday is coming up in 2 weeks!
I haven't updated Birdie's blog in a while and wanted to post some recent pictures of her. I'll update her details closer to her birthday, and hopefully be able to upload some of her adorable videos.

Look how perfect I am :)

 

Birdie loves inspecting new things!

Birdie loves watching us make toast

from her view on top the microwave

Birdie still loves to be hand fed

and flits over to her feed dish as I get ready to prepare her"baby-food" 

(moistened/softened dog kibble)

Such vibrant colors and so perfectly healthy

Happy Spring, and Happy Mother's Day from Birdie :)