Good onya Mum

One of the downsides of Spring is finding either broken birds eggs or bird chicks on the ground. On rare occasions (click HERE for the link) I have been able to successfully place the chicks back in the nest. But if you can’t locate the nest or even if you can but can’t access it what do you do? I try and move the chick from the ground to a tree or bush and then walk away and let nature take its course – hard to do if the chick is chirping loudly and the parents are responding in kind.

On Grand Final day I came across a Red Wattlebird  (Anthochaera carunculata) chick, pictured left, sitting on the ground loudly chirping with two equally loud adults sitting above in the tree. The chick was in a fenced-off yard containing a single large eucalypt and a few bushes. No nest was in sight and the bolshie chick was not going to let anyone put it in the bushes. So I let it be.

Red Wattlebirds are the largest honeyeater on mainland Australia, its range extending across the south of the continent. They usually build a stick and bark nest in a eucalypt anywhere up to 15 m above the ground. The chicks usually fledge at two to three weeks.

Five days later I walked past the same yard and observed a parent (pictured above right) still feeding the much larger chick on the ground. I was pleasantly surprised to see the parents had stayed around to feed the chick and that a cat had not made a meal of it. On observing me the chick made a pretty good attempt at a take-off (pictured left).

I reckon give it another day or two and it will be able to fly out of harm’s way.

Good onya Mum for sticking around.