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Step 12Prior experience
Our first baby hummingbird rescue (10 years ago) ended successfully after a week with an amazing reunion.
The week started as I was mowing the lawn and found a smaller baby in the grass, not able to fly. I knew the myths, "If you touch it the mom won't take it back", etc.
But as night was falling I had to do something. We took it in and hand fed it for a week 10-15 times/day. We named her Heidi (since she was "hiding" in the lawn).
She liked to sit on my shoulder pretending she was a parrot and I was her pirate/mobile perch.
I let her practice flying in the house like an insect fluttering up the wall and slowly back down, coming to rest in the the palm of my hand. This practice helped her build strength and endurance.
On the 6th or 7th day we brought her cage outside for some evening fresh air and 30 seconds later her mom zooms down from the redwood tree and starts chittering excitedly at us. Something about "You've been giving her too much sugar and you're going to rot her beak off." We reached into the cage, picked Heidi up and put her on the top (outside) of the cage. Within 15 seconds, the mom was catching gnats (bugs) from a convenient nearby swarm and feeding them to Heidi. Over the next hour Heidi was escorted by her mom, in a series of small flights, back up to the nest in the redwood.
This debunks the "Momma bird won't take back babies that have been touched by people" myth.
The nest was high up in the redwood. It was high enough for about a 30 degree glide path over the house and down to the front lawn where I found Heidi that first day.
The week started as I was mowing the lawn and found a smaller baby in the grass, not able to fly. I knew the myths, "If you touch it the mom won't take it back", etc.
But as night was falling I had to do something. We took it in and hand fed it for a week 10-15 times/day. We named her Heidi (since she was "hiding" in the lawn).
She liked to sit on my shoulder pretending she was a parrot and I was her pirate/mobile perch.
I let her practice flying in the house like an insect fluttering up the wall and slowly back down, coming to rest in the the palm of my hand. This practice helped her build strength and endurance.
On the 6th or 7th day we brought her cage outside for some evening fresh air and 30 seconds later her mom zooms down from the redwood tree and starts chittering excitedly at us. Something about "You've been giving her too much sugar and you're going to rot her beak off." We reached into the cage, picked Heidi up and put her on the top (outside) of the cage. Within 15 seconds, the mom was catching gnats (bugs) from a convenient nearby swarm and feeding them to Heidi. Over the next hour Heidi was escorted by her mom, in a series of small flights, back up to the nest in the redwood.
This debunks the "Momma bird won't take back babies that have been touched by people" myth.
The nest was high up in the redwood. It was high enough for about a 30 degree glide path over the house and down to the front lawn where I found Heidi that first day.
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This hummingbird may not have needed rescue at all, certainly not for as long a time as you kept him. Hummingbirds use so much energy that when they sleep, they must enter a period of semi-hibernation. On "very cold" mornings it may take a little bit longer for them to wake up. A good meal at most was what this hummer needed, and you could possibly have simply warmed her up in your hands and he would have been fine. Although you saved him, this bird could have easily died ( I have seen it happen many times). A wildlife rehabber is really your best bet if you think it really needs care.
My family helped a few birds over the years-mainly morning doves and a couple of starlings. Usually they needed little other than a safe place to recover for a few hours away from predators (crashed into window and then dropped into the pool below being rather common until film was put on the windows).
The one longer term wild resident-a starling-was found far from any potential nest and possibly had been played with a little by a cat beforehand. We didn't have any extra cages at the time and had to put her in with some zebra finches to keep her safe from our cats (NEVER mixed wild and pet birds if there is any alternative at all-they can make each other very sick-even a box is better in most cases). She had just started to get some pinfeathers and was quite a bit larger than the finches. Zeebs being prolific and prone to feeding any baby that demands it, kept her stomach full although she still had to be hand fed mashed up bugs as the zeebs are seed eaters, not omnivores like starlings. Flight training for her was difficult, she enjoyed just sitting on a perch and getting fed and clung to us as we tried to get her to fly back and forth. Eventually she did take off and apparently thrived-unlike most rescued birds returned to the wild...the next year she brought half a dozen newly fledged babies of her own to show off and wasn't above begging neighborhood kids for a bit of peanut butter. Shortly afterwards my family moved away so we don't know how long she lived but with her obviously thriving and finding a mate with which to raise at least one clutch we are pretty comfortable calling her a huge success. Even wildlife rehabbers often lose many of their baby birds and the number that can be successfully released is very small and even smaller still is the number who can survive their first year in the wild.