The story of the song thrush chicks

It all started on Thursday, two and a half weeks ago. I'd had an email from home mid-afternoon "Please get milk" so, as I was on my way I decided to 'phone and check there was nothing else that we needed - and save myself an extra shopping trip. My first call home wasn't answered, so I left it a while and tried again - still no answer, which was a bit puzzling, so I tried Luc's mobile. This time, he answered.

"Where are you, and do we need anything more than milk?"

"I'm in the car park. You'd better come straight home; we've got a bit of a situation".

This had me worried. Had someone damaged the car? Was there water pouring from our flat into the car park below? But the, Luc hadn't sounded upset or angry .... more bewildered, if I had to say.

I got home and checked the car park. Luc wasn't there, and I couldn't see any immediate signs of damage or water, so I went up to the flat. As I walked in, I asked what the matter was.

"Be quiet and listen".

Nothing except birdsong from the open window. No, it was too loud to be from outside ....

"There's a bird in here. Did it fly in and can't get out?" But if that was the case, Luc would be trying to help it.

"It's more complicated than that. Look in the box".

There was a largish cardboard box on the sofa. I open it carefully .... and saw (and heard) three very small birds looking up at me.

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Around 4.00, Luc had gone down to the car park, and spotted a bundle of feathers in the middle of the entry. Using a blanket so as not to put his own scent on it, he moved it gently into the shrubs (which had been cut the previous day) which go down one side of the car park. He could hear a couple of other birds tweeting, which he assumed were the parents, and hoped they would find and rescue the chick.

Half an hour later he went back to check. The one he had put in the shrubs was back in the middle of the car park, and the other two were now in the open as well, and both were chicks. Not an adult in sight, or in hearing.

If left where they were, they weren't going to last long. We have a number of cats on the estate, and the chicks weren't exactly being quiet. So, having satisfied himself that there were no adults around, Luc found a box that some one had put in the paper waste, added some shredded paper, and gently put the chicks in and brought them up to the flat.

We can only assume that, when the shrubs were cut, the nest was disturbed or destroyed and the parents left.

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An internet search turned up only one place near us that might be able to take them, but they weren't answering the 'phone, so we had to start trying to care for them, for while at least. The local pet shop very kindly lend us a large bird cage, and we had mealworms at home for the dragons .... but the chicks wouldn't eat them. They seemed too young for that.

Another internet search showed an expert soaking dry cat food with water until it became a thick paste, then feeding young birds with a dropper. Luc found a dropper immediately, but we didn't have any dry cat food - since Dyson was ill earlier this year, we don't feed either cat with dry food as, if there's anything left over in Snowball's bowl Dyson will eat it.

So I went and bought some dry cat food. For the birds. And we explained to the cats that the birds weren't for them.

The first feeding was a bit of a struggle. None of the chicks understood what was going on, so we had to open their beaks very gently and give them the food. It took a while, but we got something in all three of them, none of them brought it back up, and they all quietened down for a while.

Half an hour later, they were calling for food again. Two, at the sight of the dropper, opened up their beaks and took the food happily, but the third still didn't want to know. This one looked to be the eldest - he was certainly the biggest - but, once again, we managed to get some food inside him.

We continued with less-than-hourly feeds until about 11 pm when we fed them once more and then covered the cage with a blanket.

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The following morning I was dreading going downstairs in case I found them dead but, as I was about to make my way down, I heard a loud tweet. So at least one of them had made it through the night. I lifted the blanket and looked into the bottom of the cage .... and had three sets of bright eyes on me in an instant, and a lot of noise!

Having got them through the night, we decided not to try to get them into a rescue centre, as the transfer to yet another environment might prove detrimental. Luc continued with the regular feeding while I was at work, and gave up his regular Friday evening at the airgun club. From their shape, markings and where we had found them, I was able to identify them (via another internet search) as thrush - probably song thrush.

The one was still not feeding on his own, but was showing the start of some tail feathers; we hoped we could get enough food into him to keep him going until he could fly, but we thought this unlikely. The other two were feeding well, and getting bigger. We got them some maize, but that didn't seem to interest them, and the mealworms were still off the menu.

By Saturday, two of them (including the one that wasn't feeing properly) were getting themselves up onto the perches in the cage, albeit not that gracefully. While the cats were out of the way we took the birds out of the cage and encouraged them to exercise their wings, but none of them were anywhere near flying.

Sunday was pretty much the same. The two younger chicks were feeding well, and one now matched the size of the older chick, who wasn't growing, and was giving us some real concern.


Monday was Luc's birthday. It was also the morning when he found that the chick that hadn't been feeding had died overnight. It wasn't a surprise, but it was still upsetting.


To be continued