Found a baby bird

Nestling or fledgling?

Look at the feathers and the feet. A fledgling is feathered all over, with a short stub of a tail, and it hops, flutters and grips your finger or a twig tightly. It has left the nest on purpose, cannot fly well yet, and its parents are still feeding it, often from out of sight. Most baby birds people find are fledglings, Cornell’s All About Birds says.

A nestling is small and bare or nearly so, with a few wisps of down, and cannot hop or grip; it may drag itself along. It belongs in its nest, which is almost always close by.

A fledgling: leave it be

Walk away and watch from a distance, from indoors if you can. The parents may be tending four or five young spread around the yard, and they come back to this one. If it sits on a path, a road or open lawn where a cat can reach it, move it onto a low branch or into a shrub nearby, and keep cats and dogs inside for a few days.

Putting a fledgling back in the nest does not work: it hops straight out again. One rehabilitator told Audubon that 80 percent of the baby birds brought to her center had simply been taken from parents who were looking after them.

A nestling: put it back

Touching a baby bird does not make its parents abandon it; birds have a poor sense of smell.

1. Find the nest. It is usually in the tree or shrub right above where the bird was lying.
2. Pick the nestling up gently and put it back in the nest.
3. If the nest has fallen or is out of reach, make one: a small berry basket or container lined with dry grass or a scrap of cloth, fixed as high as you can in the same tree or shrub.
4. Watch from a distance. If no parent comes back within about an hour, call a wildlife rehabilitator.

When it needs help now

Call a wildlife rehabilitator, your state wildlife agency or a vet straight away if a cat or dog has had the bird in its mouth, if it is bleeding or a wing hangs, if its feathers are wet when it has not rained, if flies gather on it, or if both parents are known to be dead.

Until you reach help, put it in a small closed box with air holes and a soft cloth, somewhere quiet, dark and warm, away from pets and children. Don’t try to feed it or give it water: rehabilitators see baby birds with food in their lungs from well-meant feeding, Audubon reports.

Finding a wildlife rehabilitator

Search your state’s name with “wildlife rehabilitation”, use Animal Help Now’s finder, which searches by location, or call your state wildlife agency: the list below links each one. Only veterinarians and licensed wildlife rehabilitators may care for a wild bird; for anyone else, keeping most wild birds, even to raise one, is against the law. A bird raised by hand can also grow up taking people for its parents.