Hurt bird in my garden - what should I do?

[CinnabarRed]

There’s a clearly injured bird in my garden. It can’t fly, but it can hop. Two uninsured and much bigger birds are feeding it, and it’s taking the food readily.

What should I do?

If I leave it there one of the local cats will take it. Although my two are leaving it well alone. Would a vet take care of it?

Help.

Vets will take it - mine did when a bird was injured in the road. But it sounds like the parents are still around it's probably worth speaking to an out of hours vet to get advice before moving it.

Could it just be a fledgling and not flying well rather than injured? Can you identify the type of bird (describe the parent birds and we’ll help?

Called my local vets. They recommended phoning the local wild animal place, but they don’t open until 9:30.

That’s the injured bird.

Rspca will come and get it but only if its contained. Put a washing basket on it.

That’s the best photo I can get of one of the feeding birds.

It’s under a washing basket. How long can it go without being fed by one of the adults?

What makes you think it's injured and not just a fledgling?

Truthfully, I don’t know if it’s hurt or just too little to fly.. I guess I assumed it was injured because it was sitting in its own poo when I first went to look at it. But now I’ve seen it being fed and hopping around.

I just want to do what’s best.

It's a fledgling being fed by its parents. All the advice about this kind of situation from RSPB or rspca is to leave them alone.

www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/how-you-can-help-birds/injured-and-baby-birds/baby-birds/

Basket is off again and parents are still around, thankfully.

It’s fine and normal. It’s a baby bird, a blackbird I think. They leave the nest before they can fly and then they hop around in the undergrowth while the parents still feed them. It stresses me out every year because the neighbourhood cats appear and the crows too, and the parent birds go crazy!

Seriously, that doesn’t seem the most sensible arrangement for evolution to throw out!