What are these baby starlings doing in an old bicycle basket from our garage, you may be wondering? Here's the story: on the west side of our house we have some vinyl siding that had an unusual bowing out. It concerned us and then we heard some peeping. Bob saw the parents flying in and out of a small opening. Oh,oh, we have baby birds that are not supposed to be growing behind our siding.
Bob did some research and found out that they could be moved if we provided another nest for them. We've all heard the old tale about not to touch baby birds or the parents would abandon them. We hoped that would not be the case; we needed to get those little birds out from behind the siding.
Slowly and carefully we took the siding off the house, labeling each piece to allow us ease to put it back up. There was lots of nesting material crammed in a very small space.
Here's some of the nesting material on the top of our recycling bin. Behind it is an old bird feeder that we thought may work as their new nest/home.
We put the babies in an ice cream bucket and one fly out. Bob had to go all over the garage to find that agile little thing. The front bird feeder was too small. We put them in this bike basket that we'd been using as a glove holder.
Bob went up to get more siding off the house and found one more bird. That make a total of 5 baby birds.
We tied their new nest next to our utility pole and put a rice bag made of burlap over most of the top with room for the parents to come and feel them. After we got the ladders put away and left the area the parents came back to feed the birds.
Here's a parent bringing some food.
The parent would land on the edge and hop inside bringing food--feed one, two, more and then fly off. This happened over and over again. Quite amazing. I'm so glad they came back to care for the little ones.
Do you have any bird stories to share?
