Was the loss of the birds' nests. This really upset me. There are more trees around, but these trees were the perfect place for a nest. Because of all of the needles, they were fairly hidden and safe. No sun beating down and protection from the wind and rain and cold.
And that's all gone now. Brian's buying some fertilizer spikes that supposedly will bring back the growth a lot more quickly. I hope so.
I'd made my concerns to the trimmers, but they had a job to do and a short time to do it and watching for nests wasn't in their job description. But one of them did come up to Brian with his hands cupped. It was a baby bird. He handed it to Brian. Brian handed it to me. Brian went back into his shop and found a small box and an old teeshirt and I brought it into the house, putting it into the extra room. Then I closed the door and came online, looking for advice. I contacted someone in rescue, but he didn't get it, he kept telling me to take it to a rescue place. This wasn't practical at that moment. I kept looking.
I found some advice and cut up fragrance and chemical free paper towels. Found a couple of plastic bowls to put the baby and the shredded paper towels and an old shirt of mine to cover it partially up so that the warmth would stay in. We have some high quaility kitten food that we'd got for Marco last year when he was losing weight. I soaked it in filtered water until it was soft, then used a hand blender and one of the many unused syringes I've gotten over the years from the vet.
I heated up the food, washed my hands and started feeding this little bird every forty-five minutes to an hour. The advice I'd found is they don't need to be fed from sundown to sunup. The parents don't do that, so neither do the humans who rescue them.
Anyway, I grabbed this video the last time I fed him. This was the first time I heard full on chirping from him. And the first time he spread his wings so widely. I'm really hoping he makes it.
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