Starbird Thrives

 Over the next few days, we checked on Starbird to make sure his single starling parent (the other bird, probably confused, closed the book on the whole deal) was still feeding him. He squatted on the five eggs, waiting for his foster parent to return with food.  Since he didn't have a brood patch to warm them properly, the eggs wouldn't hatch now. It's going to sound a bit odd, but I considered this a win/win situation: adorable foundling saved; five fewer potential starlings as a result. The strange math of a guilt-ridden rehabber's rationale.

I have to admit he was durn cute, and we all got pretty fond of him. It was fun to see him grow and feather out, and not have to be feeding him ourselves.

Liam checks him for mites. So far, so good. We got that infested gourd down just in time!

He grew and grew!

Back in the gourd with you.

Soon, he got so big and wiggly it was getting dangerous to remove him, for he was likely to take fright and try to fledge prematurely. This is the last photo of the whole Starbird. He's 14 days old here. 

At Day 15, we photographed him in situ, which turned out to be a mistake. Right after this photo was taken, he shrieked and bolted out of the nest, landing with a fluttery plop on the ground. I chased him down, popped him back in the hole, covered the hole, waited for him to settle down, and smoothly raised the gourd, never to lower it again. He was in the nest for another two days, and then I heard the characteristic harsh KWERR! of a newly fledged starling in the gourd. Interestingly, his parent removed the unhatched eggs the day before Starbird fledged, dumping them on the lawn. The next day, the strange little foundling left the gourd and was flying all around the yard, kwerring. Rarely, I'd see a parent starling, but he seemed to be mostly on his own.

This is a peculiarity of starlings. Believe it or not, a baby starling may be fed by a parent for only one day after it leaves the nest! sometimes as long as a week, but no more. I can't imagine a baby bird being ready to forage with that little subsidy, but starlings somehow pull it off. Starbird was lucky--I saw him chasing a parent three days after fledging. That day, he fetched up on the top of our tower, calling KWERR!, shouting his joy to be alive,  hoarse thanks to his reluctant benefactors, both feathered and human.

Meet Starbird

Whew. It's been a crazy spring for bird rehab calls and conundrums. Because Bird Watcher's Digest is the only thing in Marietta with "bird" in its name, many people call there hoping to get baby birds taken off their hands. Some arrive in cardboard boxes, the donors conveniently overlooking the fact that magazine staffers are not wildlife rehabilitators. Surely they must know what to do with this poor baby bird.

As you might have deduced, these little living problems often land on my lap. It's easy in theory to say, "One shouldn't raise a starling (or house sparrow); they're an exotic species that doesn't belong here."
It's extremely difficult to look into the bright eyes of a little bag of guts and hope like this

and what? Wring its neck? Leave it in the weeds somewhere? Not a karmic option for someone who's just come through three days of feeding 35 bluebirds and chickadees back to health. There'd been enough death and destruction in my world of late. I couldn't deny him his life.

Starlings are very sneaky birds. They can build a nest and get a clutch of eggs laid before you know it. And two pairs had done just that in our martin gourds, completely uncontested by any martins. I knew there were nests in there; I'd seen the birds coming and going. When Bill called and sent me a cellphone picture of this little fellow from the BWD office, I thought, "I'll slip him in the nest with babies and let starlings raise him." I had checked just the afternoon before and seen two two-day old chicks gaping lustily.

When the bird arrived that evening, I was dismayed to find him a good nine days old. Yikes. Not a good mix with two-day-old chicks, but still worth a try to put him in the nest and see if the parents would adopt him and feed him along with their own young. I fed and rehydrated the little bird overnight until he was bright and eating and pooping well. The next morning I lowered the gourds, only to find the two babies dead, covered with chicken mites, a common parasite of starling nests, and a very common cause of their death at a young age. RATS!! Now what?

I peeked in the second gourd. Five warm eggs in a clean nest. I took the infested gourd down, plunged it in a bucket of hot water to kill all the mites, fed the baby starling again, took a deep breath, and put him in the mite-free nest with the five eggs. It was a crazy leap of faith, but worth a try. If the parents wouldn't adopt him, I'd figure out a Plan C. One thing I knew, I didn't want to raise him. Another thing I knew: I didn't want to euthanize him.

I withdrew to the house and watched through a window, well back where the starlings couldn't see me. The incubating bird returned and clung at the entrance to its gourd. It stared without entering at the new teen starling within. How had that hulking thing hatched from its half-incubated eggs? It flew away. 

Countless times over the next hour, the same scenario repeated. The pair would cling, peer in, and leave. And then something clicked, and they both dropped to the lawn and started foraging for all they were worth, grabbing grubs.  One member of the pair would hold a grub briefly, fly toward the box, land on a nearby perch, then eat the grub. Whoops. A bit conflicted there, a bit confused. I couldn't blame it. From eggs to half-grown young in one hour? I'd like to feed it, but I'm not so sure it's mine. I think I'll eat this grub myself.

About two hours later, I saw a bird enter the gourd with food, and I knew that I had just been released from duty as a starling surrogate. I whooped with joy and went on with my life. 

And Starbird went on with his. These photos were taken two days later, when he was being well-tended by his foster parent.