My new friend… for a short while…
August 2, 2008
He (or she?) is very small… extremely small and very fragile. This morning, while reading the latest in the WHFP, we heard this sharp tick against the window and saw a tiny bird laying on the patio tiles. It was obviously KO. Normally they fly away after a short while but this one didn’t.
So I went out and picked it up. It was really, really small and fragile and had its eyes closed in a sleepy way. There was still life in it though… While holding it, it slowly woke up but still kept dozing off. After about 10 minutes without any visible improvements, I put it down inside a piece of driftwood which we have in our garden. A relatively safe place where it would not be disturbed by lurking predators.
I checked it out again after 15 minutes. It was still sitting there so I carefully picked it up again. And then, all of sudden it had found its spirits and flew off and landed safely in the gutter where it looked at me for a couple of seconds. Then it flew off into the bushes next to the house….
9:52pm edit: I got somewhat curious as to what species my little friend belongs to and according to the website of the RSPB it’s a Goldcrest, one of the smallest singing birds. I’m not an expert so any bird watcher out there might prove me wrong!
The RSPB have an extremely cool website with an online bird identifier!
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Hate to call myself an expert, but that is definitely a goldcrest. Firecrests are very similar but have an orange stripe on the top of their heads and goldcrests, - well they have a gold stripe. The first year we were here, we had three goldcrests regularly in our garden but none last year or this at all. Great that you managed to help save it. They are really quite charming little birds.
HOI Rogier en Claartje,
In mijn vogelboek vond ik de naam van het kleine zangvogeltje, wat zo onfortuinlijk tegen jullie raam vloog: het moet een “goudhaantje” geweest zijn: 9 cm, een van de allerkleinste broedvogeltjes, heel strijdvaardig, nestelt meestal in een conifeer, zet bij het baltsen zijn kuifje omhoog, vandaar de naam, nestbouw hangend onderaan een tak van een naaldboom: een kogelrond bouwwerkje van mos, spinnewebben en stukjes bast.
Er bestaat een nog iets kleuriger ex.: nl “vuurgoudhaantje”.
Een leuke ervaring!
Hoi Roger,
my reaction is a bit late, but now you’re talking of birds I cannot let it pass without saying something about it!
Did I mention that I found a firecrest a few months ago, like yours KO, after a collision with a window?
It didn’t survive, unfortunately. But it was such a beautiful little bird, that I decided to let it upholster (it that the word?). That appeared to be a very difficult job, because it’s such a tiny bird. But a craftsman managed to do it successfully.
I brought it home, showed it to Bert, and to a sleepy cat of our, to see if it would react (the cat, I mean). And the cat did not give any reaction at all.
Then I thought I could safely show it to the youngest cat, Cato. Who did react. She bit off at once the head of the poor beastie. It was too far damaged to be repaired ….
Sometimes I’m too gullible … Bert did even warn me!
Bye, groeten ook aan Claartje