February 2013

This young male Streamertail hummingbird had a damaged wing and couldn't fly. We found it on the ground in the bushes. This video above was taken 1 week after rescue. He was still lively so we must have been doing something right. I'd hoped it would be able to fly again soon. It was probably a Red-billed Streamertail, a 'Doctor Bird' as per Jamaican parlance. Its tail streamers hadn't grown out yet.

Every morning and most late afternoons if there still was daylight when I got home after work, we'd go for a flower foraging walk. A bird can't live on just sugar-water alone!

The following video was taken about 10 days after rescuing the young male Streamertail hummingbird. There was nothing wrong with his energy! He just couldn't fly with his damaged right wing.

https://youtu.be/zR3jskGbrPo

And a visit at work...

...because nobody would be at home to keep an eye on him that day...

You can clearly see the unnatural position of Birdie's right wing... You can also see the beginnings of its streamers.

I did ask a vet about what could be done about the wing, but he basically shook his head... I never saw an improvement of Birdie's wing. Such birds are not allowed to be kept as pets here, that was not what I was trying to do. I suspect he could have lived a long healthy birdlife in captivity and never be able to fly again... He wouldn't have survived a day in the wild in that condition.

I had Birdie for several weeks, maybe more than a month, I don't remember. Every day I'd go foraging flowers with him. He'd also eat small insects, if I was smart enough to get him close enough. I soon figured it out, as you see in the second video. The easiest, small-enough insects to catch 'in the air' was for me to look for small spiders in their spider webs. Me, who hates spiders! LOL. The tinsy ones aren't that bad, though. So Birdie did get a little protein also...

This went on until the dry season made wildflowers more and more scarce. So I went to buy some flowering potted plants. It didn't occur to me that the vendor may have misted the plants with pesticide or something. Or maybe it was the fertilizer. In either case, Birdie was sick the following day after having tasted them. He died a couple of days later.

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