Saving a baby robin

[AuroraSilvermist]

My daughter found a baby robin in our garage today. Poor baby bird! It was in the 90's here today, and I'm sure it was incredibly hot in the garage (though the door was open) for the little guy.

The bird did not have flight feathers. In fact, he didn't have many adult feathers at all. This fella was all legs and beak. (And a hungry beak, too. He kept doing the big-mouth baby bird thing, waiting for a meal.) We managed to shoo him out of the garage gently without touching him, and then we opted to put him very near where we found him (again without touching him) so that his mother could find and feed him.

Of course, my kids wanted to adopt the bird and feed him and call him their own, but I believe that nature needs to take care of itself. I mean, we interfere enough. This baby fell out of its nest all on its own, and I felt the best we could do was get it back to a place where momma bird could find it. Does anyone have any other advice? Any suggestions as to what we could have done?

[Rua]

I think you did good. I found a nestling robin a couple weeks ago. The lowest branch on our tree is about 20 feet up and his little nestling brother didnt survive the fall :( We have a lot of wild cats in my neighborhood that like to eat the critters so I put him in a shoe box and drove a hour and a half to the nearest bird sanctuary. But you did a good thing by leaving it where it was, the person i talked to at the bird place said sometimes the mom birds will continue to feed the baby even though they are not still in the nest.

[Brónach Druid]

I think you did a good job. Just so you know for future reference...you can pick up a baby bird to move it. Birds have a very poor sense of smell. It is a myth that the parents will smell you and reject the baby. The only other thing I would of done was to keep a close watch on the baby to be sure the parents had found it and were feeding it. Which there is a very good chance they did. It is quite common for fledglings to be on the ground before they can really fly and for the parents to care for them there. If for some reason they did not return, it is best to turn it over to a wildlife rehabber.

[AuroraSilvermist]

Oh, thank you both! I was concerned that maybe I hadn't done the best thing for the little fella. Bronach Druid, thanks for dispelling the myth that mom birds will reject their babies if they're handled--I didn't know that.

And yes, I forgot to mention that while, at first, we didn't see a mom robin anywhere near, after we managed to get the bird to a safe place we did catch sight of a somewhat frantic robin. I suspect mom did find baby. At least I hope so. We tried to put him where she could hear him and access him, but where he was out of direct sight of any predators.