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May 28, 2010 - 2

Cool sighting of the week continued:
After a moment of inspection, I could see that one of the chicks had somehow fallen out of the pump. It was lying on the ground just beneath the pump spout, as if it had fallen from the spout, which, as it turns out, is within a baby chick's walking distance from the nest inside the pump. The little bird seemed OK, but was still very young and obviously not yet ready to fledge from the nest. Oh my, what to do? This little chickadee needed to find it's way back to the nest, but I'd always heard that it's best not to touch a young bird because it's parents may not accept it back into the nest. Well, it didn't take long to figure out that the alternative of leaving the baby chickadee on the ground was not a good option and could easily end in tragedy so I sprang to action.
Using gloves, I coaxed the chick onto a strip of soft fabric and made a sling around the bird. The slot on top of the pump is very thin. When looking in through it I could see that the nest was several inches from the top of the pump and there were two other chicks in there. I slid my homemade sling gently through the slot on the top of the pump while the baby chick chirped from within it. I calmly reassured the small bird and lowered the sling into the pump so as not to drop the chick on the two others that were still in the nest. Pushing one end of the sling into the hole while sliding the other side out, I suddenly realized that the sling was empty and the little chickadee was back in it's nest. All that remained now was to see if the parents would still accept the young back to it's nest.
I had my answer very quickly as the male chickadee returned with a worm and dived right down through the slot to give it to it's chicks. Viola! "Operation Chickadee Rescue" was a success! Phew, my feeling of trepidation faded as the parent chickadee seemed to chirp happily while resuming it's afternoon feeding routine. I stuffed a piece of the leftover fabric into the pump spout to keep the little guys from falling out again and went back inside to look at some video footage. Serendipity smiled upon me as well, for without really knowing it, I caught the whole thing with the new HD video cam. It was very cool!
This has been The Backyard Report for May 28th.
Heard on WDVR FM every Friday at 3PM during Anything Goes!
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