Expert: Roger Lederer - 4/19/2010

Question
My daughter found a baby bird, probably a mockingbird, that fell out of a palm tree.  It had some down, mostly feathers and the"baby bird mouth" wide with yellow corners.  We have been feeding it for 10 days-two weeks with a commercial hand raising food.  It is fully feathered and has gotten out of its box and flown around the room several times, but it is still eating from a syringe and showing no interest in eating anything on its own.  When can I let it go and will it figure out how to get its own food?  We live in a semi-rural area and have barn cats and there are red tails in the area and I would hate to have it starve to death after all the work we did feeding it.  Thank you in advance.

Answer
You should let it go immediately. I can't tell for certain, but the bird seems old enough when you picked it up to be taken care of by its parents on the ground. Baby birds don't often fall from the nest - they jump and the parents take care of them on the ground until they can fly. In any case, let it go right away. It will never survive on its own if you keep it much longer. Take it into the woods somewhere so it is not around your house. It will probably make it. But if you keep it, even if it survived, it would be taken out of the genetic pool as if it were dead. It seems cruel, I know, but please release it right away. And thanks for your concern.