Expert: Bluebird Bob Walshaw - 4/30/2009

Question
Last summer, I was at a dinner party and my friends and I found a chick on the sidewalk. It looked like it's eyed were bloody and it was clearly too young to be out of it's nest but it already had feathers. It did not look like a fledgeling, it was younger. It was a little brown bird, around the size of a chickadee. When I looked up so see if there was any nest that it might have been pushed out of by a sibbling. I saw none but who knows' it might have been well hidden. We took the bird into the bathroom abd cleand off it's eyes a bit and discovered that it still had eyes and eye lids that functioned well, and the wounds were just above the eyelids. We washed our hands well after handling the bird. and our friends took care of the bird and fed it some bread and a worm. It was chirping a lot after they started feeding it and it looked like it was doing well. But a few days later, it died. I was just wondering if you knew what might have happened to it so that it ended up on the sidewalk.

Answer
Usually when a small bird is found with head wounds it is the work of the alien killer house sparrows. It probably jumped out of the nest and got away when the parents and siblings were being attacked and possibly killed. House sparrows attack some 70 species of our native birds, and as Bluebirders we trap and kill them when they invade our Bluebird and other small cavity nestboxes. Like the starling they are an alien unprotected species.The usual signs of house sparrow attacks are head wounds on small birds. They are not really sparrows, bur weaver finches, and our native birds have no defense against their heavy finch bill and aggressive ways.