Bird rescue
This Common Waxbill, Estrilda astrild, was sitting in the driveway of a parking garage. Frequent commenter CET stopped by for lunch, and we found the bird on the pavement. The bird showed no obvious signs of injury, but it seemed lethargic and didn’t resist being picked up. Perhaps it was stunned after flying into a windshield.
We put the bird in a two-quart sprouting jar with some shredded sudokus and covered the jar with a towel. The bird just sat there. The mouth of the jar is about 3 inches, so you can see that this is a tiny bird. My guess is that it is a juvenile, fully fledged but not adult size yet.
After a couple of hours, we took off the towel and it had recovered enough to try to get out. After a photo shoot, we put the jar next to a hedge and the bird hopped out into the hedge and flew away soon after. All in all, the whole experience was probably pretty traumatic for the bird, but we got a close look and the bird didn’t get run over by a car.
