baby birds

I'm a bit lost because I expected to find a forum re. birds or bird watching. Didn't see anything. So here I am. I D-mailed an acquaintance the other day about a nest of fuzzy little mocking birds in a nest in my lemon tree. They are about 8-10' off the ground. There are 3 of the little critters in the nest. The 2 parents of these little buggers are doing a great job of feeding and protecting.
And I have been out there every morning to ensure that a neighbor cat will not be a threat. I've got the water hose ready, I've got a handful of pine cones ready to throw, and I have an unlimited supply of paving gravel to spray the whole area where the cat happens to be.
i've seen their fuzzy little heads and their large yellow beaks sticking up out of the nest many times when the mama bird shows up with food. And it appears to me that they are only 2-3 weeks away from trying to fly.
I've got my fingers crossed that one of them doesn't get too frisky and climb out of the nest before he really doesn't know how to fly. If I'm not around, and the cat is there, "he's a goner", as Dudley Moore would say.
Because of the circumstances, I really can't take a good picture of what's going on. Trust me, though, I AM the bird policeman, at least in my own front yard.

Those little mockingbirds are so lucky to have you as an extra "parent"!

Hi there...under 'leisurely pursuits' there is a birdwatching forum...

Hi there Betty, didn't know that. My only "leisurely pursuit" is golf, and I ain't about to put baby birds in the same category as golf. That would be blasphemy.
Now, here's a question for both you and June. How is it that the only responses, thus far, have been from good folks living in Canada? Don't people living in the lower 48 give a hoot about tiny birds? Maybe a bit rhetorical, but curious, nonetheless.

Don't know lol..just maybe we have more time to play on computer soooo always looking for someone to gab with...

I care, I can't kill anything. I can't even swat a fly. I open the windows and hope they will fly out.

Nah, don't even try it Betty. I've already nailed you as a good person with a good heart. What will you do if I don't let you know what happens to those little fuzzy-headed critters 3 weeks from now?

And where did June go? You and her are my Canadian connection. Don't you want to know if I manage to save them from cat claws?

And Kyjoy, you are located in the primary geographical birthplace of ALL flies. And yet you cannot kill one? Even water buffalos try to rid themselves. Horses. Cows. etc.
AND YOU CANNOT KILL ONE? I think you've been smoking those left handed cigarettes!!!!!! :-)

I most certainly would like to hear ... guess I'd just have to keep d-mailing you for the updates...I have a family of birds in the birdhouse I painted that my dad had made and had passed on...didn't imagine I'd get residents..anyway, while I'm out watering, either the mom or dad comes out, sits on a tree limb and gives me the beejeebers...so I have to move along lol...my dad loved to watch birds and make birdhouses..so wish he was around! So, know you'll not forget to update me...keep being their guardian..lol

Pleased to hear from you Betty. You can d-mail if you'd like, but I will try to add info on this forum as it comes. So far, not a whole lot of change, other than the little yellow beaks are standing up a bit higher than they were a couple of days ago. And I'm beginning to hear little 'cheeps' from the little fuzzy ones, especially when the Mamma bird shows up.

And, so far, I've been able to keep the nasty cats away. Our own cat does not leave the house until about 5PM. By then, all feeding has ended. And, in this heat, he doesn't want to do anything other than lay down in the shady grass.

From what I can see, these little birds will probably need a couple more weeks. I've got my fingers crossed that one of them does not get a bit frisky and jump out of the nest. But I am watching carefully. Hey, with me present, the cats are sucking wind!!!!!

I'm still watching this thread, but I had to power-down the computer until the thunderstorm threat was past.

We have no mockingbirds in this area, yet. For some reason they do not migrate this far north, although I believe some have been seen in the city of Toronto recently.

We do have lots of other birds nesting around here, though, such as grackles, red-winged blackbirds, bluebirds, several kinds of swallows, ruby-throated hummingbirds, Canada geese, wood ducks, mallard ducks, American crows, red-tailed hawk. The birds hide their nests well, except for the bluebirds and swallows that are using nesting boxes that my husband made. We keep our cats indoors, but our neighbors' three cats are constantly on the prowl.

Hope your little Mocks make it okay; be sure to keep us posted.

Yes, please keep us posted!

Just wanted to touch base. As I mentioned earlier, there are 3 tiny mocking birds in the nest. But today, when I was out on the front porch, watching for hungry cats, I could only hear one loud cheeping sound coming from the nest whenever the mother bird showed up with some food. That doesn't necessarily mean that the other two have "bit the dust" And there is no evidence that any of them have fallen out of the nest. I think I would have seen some little feathers somewhere in the immediate vicinity if that had happened.
So, now, I guess I gotta get up on the roof. I don't think I mentioned earlier that the lemon tree where the nest is located is only about 5' from the edge of the eaves of the house. And the nest is just about level with the eaves.
Holy Moly, I don't think I was ever that attentive when the DW brought home our first born. Well, I was younger then, and not nearly as observant.

I'm still trying to catch up on all my threads/forums - had a busy week so really got behind. Have no fear, blmlb, there are a gazillion bird lovers around! And we all want to hear how your little guys are doing.

Well, I just got down from the roof. Trying to see how many little birds were in the nest. I could only see two for sure, but that's because the nest is surrounded by small branches and leaves.
I was hoping the mother bird would ignore me while I was on the roof, and fly to the nest. That way I could have seen if there were 3 little heads sticking up. I stuck around for about 5 minutes while she sat on the telephone line waiting for me to leave.
From what I could see they are still rather small, at least 2-3 weeks til they try to fly. Our cat doesn't like having to stay in the house from dawn to dark, but he might as well get used to it. The neighbor cat hasn't been coming around now. I've thrown so many pine cones at him he runs the other way whenever he sees me. HeeHee.

Well, things aren't looking all that good for the tiny mocking birds in my lemon tree. Today I went to the golf course, got home about 1PM. When I was coming into the house I took a look at the bird nest in the lemon tree. One of the little critters was perched on a branch about 18" away from the nest.
He appeared to be very immature, stupid looking with a bit of fuzz right on top of his head. So I figured he was just out to air his feathers a little.
An hour later I had to do some big grocery shopping. When I got back he was nowhere to be seen. As I was carrying groceries into the house, I heard the unmistakable peep-peep of a little bird.
I tracked down the noise, and it came from the top of an overgrown hedge about 30' away from the lemon tree. The photo shows the lemon tree on the right side of the photo in the foreground. The peeps came from the big hedge in the background. It is about 30 feet from the lemon tree to the hedge. I gotta figure that the little critter managed to fly 30' from the lemon tree to the hedge.
Both of his parents were keeping a close eye on him. In fact, I could be wrong, but it looked like the mama bird flew in on several occassions just to feed the little fart.
I sat on the front porch from about 3:30 til 6:30, just keeping and eye on things, watching for stray cats to show up. No problem there.
But as I was sitting there, the parent birds never flew back to the lemon tree. And I suspect that there was nothing to fly back to. Could be that the dominate bird survived, and the other 2 did not.
It has come to the point where I cannot protect the one that has flown from the nest, but I will be out there tomorrow morning, just in case. If the parent birds are flying back and forth to the lemon tree nest tomorrow morning, then I will know that there is a bit more protection needed.
I suppose that nature works the way it is meant to, even when it does not work the way we would wish.

I wish I had had you in my yard the other night, a second batch of baby robins had just been hatched on a nest on one of our pairs of motion spotlights on the first floor of the house. The first group fledged successfully, and within a few weeks there was a new mama robin sitting on the nest. Things went well, baby birds hatched and the endless feeding and squawking angrily at me whenever I ventured too close started.

Then, I woke up the other day to find the second group, 4 babies about 5 days old, gone. The nest was in perfect shape, I would think if a coon or a possum had somehow climbed up, it would have also torn the nest down in it's eagerness to empty it. Or if it had been jays, wouldn't the parent robins have been able to at least chase them off and save some of the babies?

The only conclusion I can come to was that it was a hawk or a small owl, something intimidating enough to scare the parents away long enough for it to take ALL the baby birds. It had to have made a few trips.

I am very very sad, but I suppose if it WAS a hawk or owl, it probably had babies to feed as well and they must have eaten really good that morning.

Ah well, such is nature. It can be cold and heartless at times, but always for survivals sake.

This message was edited Jul 2, 2007 7:23 PM

blmlb, I'm glad to hear that at least one of your little birds made it out of the nest and into the world.

Hey, good news, friends. It seems that TWO of the fledgelings migrated from the lemon tree to the tall hedge (pictured above) on the same day. The hedge is so dense that I could only see one of them yesterday. But today they are in different parts of the hedge, about 10' apart, and the mama bird is running back and forth feeding both of them.
It could be that there were only 2 right from the beginning, even tho I thought I could see 3 early on. Won't know for sure if there was a 'runt of the litter' who didn't make it until I can put up a ladder and check the nest.
Mocking birds are a very hardy breed of bird, very smart, and can be rather aggressive if you get too close to their nest. The wife saw the father bird dive bomb our cat a few days ago when he got too close to the nest. Raked the cat's back and made him jump 2 feet in the air. Wish I had a picture of that.
Havana, sorry to hear about your robins. It's mighty tough to protect those little ones, especially if you might have nite time flying killers out there. When I first noticed our mocking birds beginning to build their nest in the lemon tree, I used a stick to knock out what they had begun to build, because I knew it was in a bad location. They just ignored me and within a week the nest was completely re-built. Now, it looks like they knew better than me. What the heck, I'm not a bird! :-)

Just got down from putting up my ladder to check the nest. There's no evidence of a third baby bird, and no egg shells to give me a clue. Apparently, the mama bird carries off the egg shells after they are born. Shoot, I don't know nothin about birthin no baby birds!
I can tell you about a cute story that happened about 25 years ago. While I was at work the wife rescued a baby mocking bird that had fallen out of its nest. It was barely able to walk, much less fly. She called the audubon society for advice. They told her she could raise it by feeding it small insects, grasshoppers, or even bits of raw hamburger meat. So she did that.
At the time we were renting a small 3 bedroom with a one car garage that had been converted to a large den or playroom. There was nothing in the playroom other than some indoor/outdoor carpet. She had constructed a nest of leaves and toilet paper in a shoe box for the little critter. And she fed him small bits of hamburger several times a day.
After a week/10 days he got big enough to step out of his shoe box. The wife then decided that he needed a more diversified diet, so I had to go out to the garden to turn over dirt and gather up a few worms. For a few days he was happy and she was happy.
Then the wife decided that he needed to learn how to hunt for food on his own. By now the little critter was running around the floor of the play room, every now and then trying out his wings and flying several feet.
She then told me to go out back and catch small grasshoppers. And that is when the real fun began. I would get home from work at 2PM, and go right out to the back yard with a quart jar. I ran around the back yard like an idiot, trying to catch little grasshoppers.
Once I had a jar with a dozen or so little grasshoppers, we would just let them loose in the play room. We had a lawn chair in the play room and the little critter would perch on the top of it and eyeball those little grasshoppers. When he got the urge, he would swoop down off his perch 4-5' and grab a grasshopper. Sometimes he would just run around on the floor, chasing the little hoppers. You've never seen fun until you see a small bird running accross the floor trying to catch a grasshopper. The grasshoppers would hop, and he would hop trying to catch them in mid-air. But he learned very quickly.
By the time it was time to let him loose, he knew how to hunt on his own. He was flying around the room from the drapes on the window to the lawn chair and back. Never seen so much bird poop in my life. We had to throw out the window curtains.
But he wasn't entirely wild. Even up to when we let him go we could still approach him on his lawn chair perch with a bit of raw hamburger, and he would cheep like a newborn, stick his head in the air, and open his mouth wide. He was a pure delight.
When it was time to let him go, we gathered him up and carried him about 1/2 mile away to a woodsy area owned by the audubon society. Last we saw him he was sitting on a tree branch about 20' up, looking down at us and probably thinking, "Well, it's about time".

Aw, what a nice story! We "raised" a few baby birds when I was a kid, but we kept them in a birdcage and fed them canned dog food with tweezers, starlings and sparrows I think they were. I remember one of the sparrows we named "George" and he hung around our yard for a while after release, occasionally landing on our shoulders. Now that I think back, I hope they were ok when we set them free, and not flying all over the world looking for cans of Alpo!

havana,
I just do what I can do to help the helpless. If I can enhance their chances of survival, I will do it. A tiny, fuzzy bird deserves a chance for life. And Mother Nature, without intervention, may be a harsh judge.
But Mother Nature is not the final say if we choose to fight her. I am personally pleased that maybe I have helped to get those teeny-weenies up and flying. Throwing pine cones at cats was especially satisfying, now that I look back.

Good things have happenned. Both mocking bird babies managed to survive. And both are in bush tops about 100 yards from the lemon tree nest where they started. Each one of them flew to the big hedge, but then, they parted company. One chose to stay in the hedge for a few days, while the other one decided to branch out.
As I sit on the front porch, I hear the tiny cheeps of both of them. One is a bit south of me and the other is a bit north of me.
What is so pleasing is that both are well on the way to surviving. Whatever it is that grabs and kills baby birds did not find my little mocking birds. For that, I am thankful.