The Helpless Fledgling

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A young bird (fledgling), just left its nest.

When it comes to nature conservation, we humans generally have the best intentions, especially birders. Birders are a group of people, in particular, who genuinely care about our planet, and especially the birds that inhabit it. We will happily go out of our way to help nature.

Yet, we all know that nature knows best how to care for itself. Any conservation efforts that we participate in are from the effects of humans destroying the habitats, not because nature messed up. Nature doesn’t make mistakes; humans do.

So, we spend time and money on restoring nature, which is to be applauded, but wouldn’t be necessary if we stopped destroying habitats for our own personal gains.

Why did I ramble on about us and our good intentions?

Because this time of year, we birders often find ourselves in another kind of situation where we feel inclined to help nature. It is that time of the season when we start seeing birds on the ground, and they look sick, lost, and helpless.

So, we step in and try to help.

But, unbeknownst to the often naïve birder, these birds are not infested with mites and dying.

These are fledglings!

Yes, they may be slightly helpless, but they have just left the nest and are still learning to fly.

Young birds, or fledglings, are not the cutest creatures in the world, often looking like they are infected with some evil disease, when in fact, they are perfectly healthy. This is due to their grown-up feathers still not fully developed.

So, oftentimes the well-meaning birder will intervene and pick them up, take them in the house, wrap them in a blanket, and figure out how best to take care of this bird.

Meanwhile, the parents of this fledgling, who were just feeding it where it sat and encouraging their baby to fly to a safe perching spot, just discovered their perfectly healthy fledgling is missing! So, they spend their precious time looking for it. Time that could be spent feeding their other siblings or hunting for their next meal.

Please do not pick that bird up; summon every ounce of your energy to resist the urge to take care of that helpless-looking bird, and realize that by leaving it alone, you are taking care of nature the best way possible, by letting nature take care of itself.

Here is another article on fledglings where they give good advice in case you feel there is something wrong..

Thank you

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