Expert: Julia Booth - 4/29/2008

Question
A beautiful pair of mockingbirds nested in our ficus earlier this mth.  2 babies hatched and fledged.  We found the 1st fledgling on the ground, already dead.  Our dogs had been kept inside, so weren't the culprits.  Although it had feathers & a short tail, it seemed a bit underdeveloped.  Could it have been disease or pesticides?  If the parents were getting insects from yards of neighbors, who recently had exterminators spray, could that literally kill the babies fed those insects?
Its sibling jumped out as we were disposing :o( of the 1st one.  We setup an Xpen around the surrounding area to discourage cats, keep our hounds away and the parents went about feeding him from approx. 10am to 5pm.  I noticed the baby had remained in the same spot for a couple of hrs, eyes were closed and he seemed to breathing heavy. Parents were around.  Then at around 6pm, we checked and found him in the same spot, but lying listless on his back. . .if it was a cat, wouldn't the cat have eaten or removed him?  Again, are disease and/or pesticides the most likely culprits?  He looked healthier than his sib.

Answer
I can't so for sure what caused the fledglings to die. Pesticides is a possibility, especially if you know there was a recent sprayng. I know that even in humans, pesticide poisoning tends to work fast and immediately shuts down the central nervous system. In a tiny bird, it could only take a minute amount to cause fatality.

Sorry to hear about that.