|
Robbie was a bit shy at first. He didn't know thatI was trying to feed him, so he was scared of this
giant person following him around. He hopped across the rest of our long front porch and around to the side of the
house. He tried to fly a bit, but mostly succeeded in bumping into our house or the neighbor's house. I felt badly
that he was scared, and I worried that he might hurt himself, but I also knew he would probably die if I did not
succeed. My persistence finally paid off. After a few minutes of pursuit and holding a worm over his head, he finally
opened his beak for it.
Well, feeding Robbie wasn't as easy as I had thought. First of all, I was a little nervous
about him hurting my fingers with his beak. This turned out not to be a problem, after all - it didn't hurt
if he closed his beak over my finger by accident. The main problem ended up being that Robbie kept missing or dropping
the worm. Sometimes, it was if he spit it out. I think he just closed his beak over it, and it shot out of his
mouth by accident. This was complicated by the fact that most of the worms, even when divided into smaller pieces,
squirmed vigorously. We were only successful about one out of every five tries at first.
Eventually, Robbie's little belly was full, and I ran out of worms. By this time, he had hopped
into the middle of my front yard under a nice shade tree. For the next six hours, I fed him about two to
three worms (torn in half) every half hour or so. He happily opened his beak for me each time, until he was full,
which he indicated by clamping his beak tightly shut. He never moved from that spot in the front yard for the rest
of the day. He continued to chirp regularly, but no parent robin ever came. I figured that Robbie had ventured too
far from the nest, or else his parents did not realize he had left. In either case, he was abandoned and helpless.
I knew that Robbie would need to get to a wildlife rehabilitator in order to survive. That was
the only way he could be given the proper nutrition and learn the skills he needed to survive in the wild. So I thought
I would keep him safe overnight and contact such a person on Monday morning. After much internet searching, I
found this web site:
How To Locate a Wildlife Rehabilitator.
I did some internet research and came up with a plan. I decided to catch Robbie and place him in a
box in my garage overnight. I knew that baby robins do not eat overnight, so I figured if I got him comfortable and
it was dark, he'd sleep all night. Just before dusk, I put a few old hand towels in a small box for padding. I
placed another towel gently over Robbie in order to catch him. He didn't move or struggle. I think he trusted me
at that point, after all those delicious worms. I very gently picked him up and place him in the box. I stretched a
towel over the top as a cover and placed the box in the garage. Within a few minutes, Robbie stopped chirping
completely and went to sleep for the night.
|
