Expert: Roger Lederer - 7/28/2008

Question
Hello.

I have a bird house on my porch.  Recently, some house wrens have decided to build a nest in it.  It was very touching.

Over the weekend, one of the baby birds fell out of the nest, so I scooped it up with a spoon (didn't touch it with my hands) and and put it back into the birdhouse. It fell out again, so I put it back into the birdhouse again. This morning, the bird was on the ground again. This time it was dead.

This made me think one of the other birds threw it out of the nest. So sad. I noticed the mother was still feeding the other birds in the birdhouse.

Can you shed any light on what you think may have happened here?

Thank you for your assistance.  

Answer
Baby birds are rarely pushed and rarely fall out of the nest- they jump when they are ready, even though they can't fly. The parents take care of them on the ground. It is a myth that parents will reject eggs or babies if humans touch them - it's not true. That said, you should not have returned the baby to its nest. It's traumatic for them to jump from the nest and the third jump may have killed it. Don't feel bad - you did what you thought was right (as many people do). But baby birds just naturally jump from their nest.