Earth Matters: I Found a Baby Bird

The Island Now
Image by Vinson Tan ( 楊 祖 武 ) from Pixabay

At this time of year I get calls about baby birds that seem to be abandoned.

Most baby birds jump nest a few days before they can fly but their parents continue to feed them while they learn to get off the ground. If you see a baby bird that has feathers, not just fluffy down, make sure it’s in a place that’s safe from dogs and cats and out of the sun.

Beyond that, let its parents take care. You might have to wait some time to see a parent because they will be circumspect, not wanting to draw a predator’s attention to their grounded chick.
If it’s a younger bird, see if you can locate the nest and replace it. If that isn’t possible and after a half-hour or more you don’t see parents coming to feed, put it in a ventilated box and call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator.

Volunteers for Wildlife at Bailey Arboretum (www.volunteersforwildlife.org/) has a 24-hour answering machine and they will call you back. If you bring them a bird, please make a donation to support this worthy effort.

Don’t try and raise it yourself. It is illegal to capture wild birds without a license. It’s also hard to keep them alive – baby birds are eating a diet of insects, not seeds or fruit, and they get all their moisture needs from their food.

They also do not feed themselves. If it’s going to take some time to get the bird to a rehabber, pate cat food offered on the end of a toothpick with the point removed is as close as you can get to the protein and water they would get from bugs.
It’s a fun time to observe the fledglings as they learn from their parents. If you have feeders out, you will see parents arriving with fledglings in tow, teaching them where to get food, to eat on their own, and the locations of other resources like fruit trees and shrubs, good shelter, and fresh water for drinking and bathing.

Water is especially critical at this time, especially since we seem to be in a mini drought. If you have an actively used birdbath, it’s important to rinse it out and refill every day.
This is also an important time for ornithology- the science of birds.

Breeding success is one of the marks looked for in the health of a species. Various efforts to catalog breeding birds had been made but in 1980, New York was one of the first to try a state-wide effort.

The New York State atlasing project, and its publication The Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State was a daunting project. More than 4,300 volunteers contributed more than 200,000 hours in the field over five years, and the compilation book wasn’t published until 1988.

This being pre-internet, reports were handwritten and mailed in to be compiled. Other states followed suit and Breeding Bird Atlas projects became a significant source of data. These efforts are supported by the United States Geological Survey and in New York, the Department of Environmental Conservation is funding a coordinator.
By the 2000- 2005 effort, email was available, speeding up the compilation part of the process, but blocks were still assigned to specific birders. The third New York BBA effort started this January.

Over a five-year period, birders will look for signs of breeding birds, from singing males to baby birds being fed in a nest, to the newly fledged. Having these three sets of data spanning 40 years gives scientists a look at changes in bird populations over time, which birds are doing well and which are in trouble.
The 2020-2025 project has a new reporting method. Cornell Lab of Ornithology hosts a website called ebird.org. This free platform allows birders to report and record their day to day sighting and not have to stop and jot notes on paper while out in the field.

You can get the ebird app on your phone, allowing instant recording of sightings. Add the Merlin app for bird identifications. Because these sightings from around the world are updating constantly, it is a useful source of information for scientists.

It also allows you to look at what other people are seeing in your area with the birding hot spots. For this BBA, a breeding code menu and a NY BBA reporting page allows anyone who uses ebird to participate in the project.
For the latest Atlas, the state was divided into 5710 blocks with 1815 of them are designated as Priority. Only 6 months in we’re off to a good start with data entered for 75 percent of the priority blocks and breeding confirmed for 200 species.
If you have seen breeding bird behavior or fledglings and would like to participate in citizen science, just sign up for a free ebird account.

There are good resources for how to on ebird (ebird.org/atlasny/home ) If you are interested in finding out about Atlas projects around North America, USGS has information and maps, ( https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bba/index.cfm?fa=bba.About ).

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