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Wednesday 28 May 2014

Hummingbird rescue action

Monday I visited friends that live nearby.

When I left their house I discovered a hummingbird on the ground near my van. First I thought it was dead, but when I picked it up it was warm and stirred a little.
My friend took it in her hands and decided to take it in and see if she
was o.k.

Now I know: it is not right to keep wild animals in your home, one should contact the wildlife rescue unit. But, we know from experience that no one will come out from mainland Canada to this Island just for a hummingbird. They would tell you: put it outside and let nature go its course.

Well, the story continues like this:
My friend Rogette made a sugar solution, filled a syringe and fed the bird every 30 minutes! And it drank and drank and had bowl movements, and drank more.

By 9:30 PM Rogette called and asked me:

"What now? The hummingbird is still alive.
Its dull feathers have got a nice green shine again.
I think, it is doing way better. The main question now is:

How do I get the bird through the night?"

I went and found online and read that in order to survive the hours without food the birds go into a kind of hibernation mode. That way they live of their tiny body fat reserves until the next morning gives them a new opportunity to feed again. But it also was stressed that they cannot live of sugar water alone for more than 24 hours. They need other food too (insects and such).

Rogette decided to give the bird a chance but she didn't want to sit up all night with the bird on her lap.

I remembered having a discarded budgie cage in the garage and offered to bring it over to her house.

While dropping the cage off I took these photos:
The bird was calmly sitting in a towel and feeding now and than. It made no attempt to fly at all when uncovered.
This morning I was waiting for the dreaded call. 
Did the bird make it through the night?

She DID!
Sorry, I wasn't there to take photos of that, but

R. put the bird into the cage for the night and sat a feeder right aside of  her. Than she covered it all with a blanket.

When she lifted the blanket in the morning the bird was calmly perched on a ring dangling from the top of the cage. The water level in the feeder suggested that she had herself a breakfast already.

R. carried the feeder out on the porch and took the roof off.
It was 7:30 AM in the morning.
Out the bird went: ZOOOOOOM!

Rescue mission completed!
Thank you Rogette, for saving a tiny life!

13 comments:

  1. Wow what a wonderful rescue story. Good going.

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    1. Thank's George. Now I also found out how to "reply". :))

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  2. Wow, what a neat story. And Hooray for Rogette for saving the Hummingbird.

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  3. WOW! What else can I say? Great rescue for sure.

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    1. I had my doubts, but R. was positive. We were glad it worked out so well.

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  4. Love happy endings - way to go Rogette!

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    Replies
    1. I will tell her. Yes, we love happy endings too!

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  5. Great job! How do we figure out how to treat people like this?

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    Replies
    1. Hi Grandpa Dough. Yeah, that's the big question.

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  6. Great job, Roggie! Maybe St Francis moves among us, largely unseen (?)

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I love getting a comment from you now and then. Be patient, they will appear, I just have to see first if they are OK to publish. No anonymous any more. I am getting too much spam.