LIBBY MORRIS’ BLOG
It’s Hard Being a Bird
Written by Little Plover
I am going to write about two of the most stressful days that I can remember. They occurred at the end of April, when, walking down my street, I saw a little blur of brown run underneath a car. I bent down to look and saw two fledgling House Sparrows. There are lots of Sparrows and Starlings on this particular street, and nesting season had been particularly noisy, it had been chaotic and great to watch all the parents zipping about and shouting at each other. There was also a Magpie that had moved in for nesting season, no doubt to make the most of the easily accessible chicks. Every time it appeared the Starlings & House Sparrows went mad, raising an alarm that could be heard two streets away.
These two Sparrows had only recently fledged, and it looked like they’d decided to do it a little early as they were totally unable to fly, only flapping their downy wings when Mum flew down to feed them – which she did frequently. In order for them to survive, these two little birds would need to navigate the next few days without encountering a cat, a Magpie or a car. This was going to be highly unlikely, particularly as this street is a busy residential street in the middle of Brighton, and because the tiny dweebs decided it was a good idea to spend most of their time sunbathing in the middle of a road on which they blended into perfectly. There was no way a driver of a car would see them. I decided to become a little bird lollipop lady for a couple of days (I’ll mention now that it was peak lockdown, so it was a welcome distraction from doing nothing at all).
It was really interesting watching the way the rest of the Sparrows on the street interacted with them. Many of the adult female Sparrows would fly down to inspect them and peck around their feet but would quickly fly away if the fledglings came running to them for food. Their father would come down and feed them once for every ten times that the mother did, and would strut around proudly after he’d done so for a minute or two before flying off again (men). After a few minutes, the mother didn’t mind my presence at all and would come down and feed her chicks regardless of how close they’d wandered towards me. The fledglings themselves were fearless, not realising that a car speeding towards them was a threat. They even came up to where I was sitting, just over a metre away and spent a bit of time in a patch of gravel next to me, which was wonderful. (I have to admit I did get very attached to them). They didn’t try to fly once for the first day, and after eight hours of sitting in the middle of the road unless I ushered them to the edge of the kerb with one arm up to a confused driver, they settled down for the night under a parked car. I was concerned about cats, but there really was nothing that could be done without interfering with them.
I got up early the next morning to go and check on them and they were both still alive – I was delighted! Whilst I do understand that most passerines have several clutches of eggs because the survival rate of their chicks is so low, and that there is a fine line between guarding or observing from a distance and interfering with nature, I defy you to spend hours watching two fluffy baby birds running around making silly noises and not have a vested interest in their survival. I set up camp at the side of the road again, prepared for another day of being the bird safety officer. The mother had been feeding them since daybreak – it felt very special being able to watch one of nature’s nicest things to witness at such a short distance away from the birds.
This morning the fledglings were attempting to fly for the first time, being encouraged by Mum who sat on top of a single storey shed (rather than disappearing as she had been the day before) and being very vocal. It didn’t take long for them to get pretty good – within a couple of hours they were able to fly and hover a couple of feet up in the air. Their flying lessons were interrupted however, when the Starling & Sparrow alarm call kicked off and Mum flew off in a hurry and the fledglings disappeared together under a parked car. I couldn’t figure out what it was at first, I couldn’t see the Magpie, and it was only when the downy blur of a baby Sparrow flew past me low to the ground that I realised that there was a cat after them. I took it upon myself to distract the cat and was able to get rid of it but I had lost sight of the fledgling that had moved to safety. All of a sudden the alarm calling volume went up to eleven and I saw a Magpie fly over my head and land on a hedgerow in a neighbour’s garden, where it stopped and sat with its attention on something in its feet. With my heart in my mouth, I ran upstairs to the first floor of my flat and looked out of the window with my binoculars. The Magpie was eating a baby bird! I put two and two together and decided that my missing fledgling must be the one in the Magpie’s claws. I won’t lie – I was pretty upset (I’ll stress again – whilst I do understand how nature works and that this is part of the cycle, I had got attached to the little grubbers I’d taken guardianship of).
After a minute or two of getting very annoyed at myself for not doing better by those silly little birds, I went back outside to see where my remaining chick was. It seemed okay, still sat by the side of the road, and Mum was feeding it again. All of a sudden, I felt a tiny breeze next to my ear and a tiny fluffkin hooked its claws on to the wall around a foot away from my face. IT WAS THE SECOND FLEDGLING AND IT WASN’T DEAD! It had flown the highest that I’d seen it yet, and there it was, sitting within arms reach, staring right at me. That is definitely one of my best experiences of the natural world. It flew off fairly quickly and joined its sibling underneath the car, and it wasn’t long before they were back in the middle of the road, risking their lives for a bit of sunshine.
I settled back down for the next couple of hours and observed as the fledglings continued practising to fly, each time getting higher and higher. I watched as one of them flew up the side of a building, level with the first floor, before dropping out of site. I ran over, and saw that it had fallen down the basement grill of the house. I knocked on the neighbour’s door and let them know, and he soon brought the fledgling up in his hands and placed it down behind a plant pot. He told me that his cat had been in the basement at the time and had gotten hold of the chick. It didn’t look too good, it had gone into shock. I decided to move it to where its mother would be able to see it, so I placed it near the other fledgling and sat back to observe. In the time that this had happened, the other chick had managed to drop behind a green electrical box whilst practising flying and had got stuck between a plastic bottle and the wall, so I removed the bottle with a stick and watched to make sure that it was able to get out. At this point, both fledglings were under a parked car, but Mum was only feeding the one that wasn’t in shock, totally ignoring the weaker one. I called my local wildlife rescue (Roger, an incredible man), who had told me to leave the fledgling to see if the mother did return to it. It was evening by this point, so I continued to watch until sundown – at which point the stronger of the two chicks (who had settled itself on the top of the wheel of the car they were under) suddenly flew up, following its mother up to the top of one of the houses. I waited another hour, but the mother didn’t return for the weaker fledgling. At this point I did decide to intervene, catching it with a net and putting it in a box with a hot water bottle underneath and taking it up to Roger.
I’m afraid it’s not a happy ending, the second fledgling did not make it. Roger told me that it had a lot of white feathers on its wings, which is a sign of malnutrition in birds. This means that its survival would have been questionable, even without the cat incident. However, a few days later (on my birthday, a lovely present) I looked out of my bedroom window into the back garden and saw a fat fluffy Sparrow sitting in the Ivy on the wall, both parents jumping around it taking turns to feed it. I like to think that it was the remaining fledgling coming to say thanks, although it was probably only there for the grubs.
What I learnt over these two days is that it is exhausting being a bird. The number of variables that they depend upon for their survival is huge, and when it comes down to it, the likelihood of any one individual living is down to chance as much as anything else. The parent House Sparrows did everything right – keeping a keen eye on their chicks once they’d left the nest, feeding them regularly, encouraging them to fly, even focusing attention on the stronger of the two fledglings to ensure the survival of at least one – and even then the chances of them surviving were slim. The parents will most likely have gone on to have a second or even a third clutch of eggs this year and the chances of any of them reaching the age of one is unlikely. AND, if nature wasn’t difficult enough, add humans in to the mix. The fledglings would have almost certainly been crushed under the wheels of a shiny 4×4, or killed by a pet cat, or even remained trapped behind a big metal box because of litter. The chances of surviving the first few days out of the nest become even slimmer when in an urban environment. The only shelter the fledglings had was parked cars – which have a tendency to move. There was no flora for them to hide in, and no way for them to feed themselves even if they could because it’s hard to find things growing or living in concrete. I spent a couple of days just as a bystander to the plight of two birds, and I was exhausted. These sorts of events are their everyday lives and it makes me realise two things – one, that I am actually quite lucky to be a human and have the privilege of living an environment that has been built for my species, and two, we all have a huge responsibility to take care of our immediate environment – particularly in urban areas – and to care for the other species of animals that have to share it with us. It is down to us to make sure that the small part of our urbanised environment that we have responsibility for is accessible to birds, insects and mammals. It’s too late to remove ourselves from the picture altogether and just let them get on with it, so we have to manage it as best we can. I have so much more respect for birds than I did before this happened – their versatility is truly incredible. If you think about how many passerines nest in urban areas it’s really quite amazing that we have as many birds in urban areas as we do.
Note: If you do see any baby birds on the ground during the breeding season, watch to see if the parents come down rather than taking them straight to a wildlife rescue. The parents invest a lot of time and energy into feeding their chicks and are unlikely to leave them unless something happens. The chances are, the ones that you have found are perfectly fine – and if you do think that they are in danger then move them to a place of safety nearby where the parents will still be able to hear them.
About Libby
Libby is a Sussex-based illustrator and natural history enthusiast with a degree in ecology and conservation. She studies birds, plants, insects and fungi before going home and drawing them. Her creative process originated from self-teaching natural history, and the blend of illustration and ecology has bloomed into an exciting and varied career.
As well as illustrating for projects on behalf of many organisations such as HarperCollins, Waitrose and The Museum of English Rural Life, Libby is a publisher of greetings cards and stationery products. Little Plover distributes paper-based products that are all inspired by the things she’s seen outside. Libby’s work is currently sold in galleries, shops and nature reserves all over the UK including the Turner Gallery, the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB.
Libby’s first published illustrations for HarperCollins: ‘Tits, Boobies & Loons and Other Birds Clearly Named by People who Hate Birds’ by Stuart Royall was released in 2022.