Expert: Julia Booth - 8/7/2009

Question
We have a birdhouse on a tree truck outside. There is a mother and baby birds in there. Today I saw a blue jay go inside the birdhouse, and grab a baby bird and took it out. The mother chased the blue jay which made the blue jay drop the baby bird. The baby bird can't fly. It hobbled and rolled down the hill into the woods and lay there. I went and picked it up with 2 gloves on and put it back into the bird house. Will the mother still take care of it and the other babies, or will it abondoned it? Please let me know if I did the right thing. I saw this and felt terrible for what had happened to the baby bird.

Answer
Blue jays frequently feed on the eggs and young of other birds. If by some chance the baby survives the attack, there is no logical reason why the parents would stop caring for it. The belief that birds will reject their babies if they have been handled by humans is an urban legend.

Nice save. Hopefully the baby will make it.

Julia