Guide us, LJ!

[rivka]

There's a baby bird in our yard, hopping around and chirping in what sounds like distress. It doesn't seem injured in any way - it's covered a fair bit of ground by hopping, and I've seen it flap its little useless wings.

There's a pair of cardinals that we usually see in the yard next door. When we come into the yard, they hang out on the first-floor roof peeking at us anxiously. I think they must be the parents. The baby has a little bit of a cardinal look to the shape of its head and beak.

We don't know where the baby came from or how it got into our yard. It can't fly. The cardinals have one nest in the yard of the house next door (a chain link fence and other barriers away), but I'm told that they tend to build serial nests and raise more than one family at a time. So there might be a nest closer by to us.

What's the appropriate course of action? Each of us has a different opinion.

Me: As long as the parents are alive and nearby, we should leave the baby alone. It has a better chance with its parents looking after it.

Michael: We should take it to an animal hospital. Or something.

Alex: I think this bird wants to be our pet. I'm going to pick some parsley for it. When we go out again, we need to buy some birdseed.

I'm vetoing Alex's plan that we keep the bird as a pet, but what's a better plan? Help us, LJ.

Updated to add: I don't know why I didn't immediately think to Google "found a baby bird."

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of "Stellaluna, my favorite book about birds and interspecies adoption. (Actually, it's a favorite in several categories.) I love how the baby fruit bat finds both kinds of happy ending, without pretending either is simple or easy. I think you'd like it, and it would probably be good for Alex to read to Rivka as well.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

It's already one of her favorites. Alex has a little game where we each get assigned a role as Pip or Flitter or Flap, and then we all traipse about the house, sometimes holding hands, sometimes running, but always in a line. Oddly enough, she never seems to want any of us to play the part of Stellaluna.