A Catbird Rescue

What started out to be me taking Ellie-Mae outside to take care of her business

quickly turned in to a catbird rescue!

No, she’s not sleepy.
Ellie-Mae closes her eyes a bit, turns her head and begins acting all sorts of shy when I am taking her picture.  Anyway, back to the catbird story...

Ellie-Mae had just stepped out onto the front porch when I noticed two little dark things just off the sidewalk at the edge of the pine needles.

Getting a little closer, I noticed two tiny birds.
They were so young you could still see their skin; they were just beginning to get their feathers.

Hearing lots of chatter coming from birds high up in the Crepe Myrtle tree, I looked up and noticed a nest...

I don’t know what could have happened but the nest had somehow toppled over and was on its side.

I got Ellie-Mae back in the house and headed to the kitchen to grab a napkin.
All the while I am wondering what I can do to help these baby birds,
where can I place them that is safe and where the momma bird can still tend to them?

Once back outside I took one bird at a time over to the far side of the porch.

Knowing there was no way I could put them back in the nest,
I figured the next best place was in a bed of pine needles tucked at the monkey grass border.

Once the second bird had been placed in the nest of pine needles I headed to go back inside but by the time I reached the porch there was another baby bird lying on the sidewalk.  So I placed the third little bird in the pine needles with the others.

I went back to see if there may have been more babies and didn't see any, but the catbirds were chattering like crazy!  Hoping they had noticed where I placed the babies, I headed back inside.

Watching from the window, it wasn't long before the momma bird was tending to her babies in their “new” nest.

This is what a mature catbird looks like and yes, their songs actually sound like a cat.

 

source

The next day I went out several times to check on the babies and later in the day I noticed one of the babies didn’t make it, more than likely the last one, found directly on the sidewalk.

I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
Usually momma birds will remove a dead baby from the nest, but this makeshift nest was on the ground.  Thinking ants and flies would be drawn to the dead bird, which wouldn’t be good for the remaining two babies, I decided to remove it from the nest.  Momma bird wasn’t happy!

I then noticed the two remaining babies were getting a lot of direct sun.  I thought that placing the babies in the corner of the bed at the monkey grass border would help to cover them, but they were getting several hours of direct sun.  I also notice flies, even though the dead baby bird had been removed, there were a lot of flies.

Aren’t they sweet!  One is on top of the other.

I couldn’t get the sun and flies out of my mind so I went to Google and searched catbirds, baby birds fallen from nests, and more.  I didn't find much to help me, but while searching I had a little more time to think about the situation and knew I had to get them off the ground…but how?!

So I went to my stash of baskets.
Gathered a bit of wire, wire cutters and a ladder.
My plan was to move the nest into a basket and hang the basket in a tree.
(see the arrows)

Can you see the basket nest?

See it now?

After filling the basket with some pine needles and soft leaves, I attached long pieces of wire to the top of the basket handle and also to all four sides of the basket.

Choosing a smaller limb, one that hopefully a cat couldn't climb out on, but sturdy enough that if a strong wind were to come it wouldn’t break, I attached the basket.
First attaching the wire on the handle to the tree limb and also attaching both side wires to the tree limb.  The center two wires on the basket were attached to another close limb for extra stability, to keep the basket from rocking back and forth should a strong wind come.

After the basket was secure I placed the two baby birds in their new basket nest.

Not long after we had a storm, with strong winds, and everything stayed secure...whew!

See the white arrow above?  This is the ground nest that was in the monkey grass and pine needles right below where the basket nest hangs now.

This is the momma Catbird.  I think she is much happier tending to her babies up in a tree rather than on the ground.  It is fun watching her!

 

The two catbird babies.
I sure hope they stay safe and will soon fly away on their own.

Have any bird stories to share?