I saved a swift - and I liked it!

[TonTonMacoute]

We have a large barn which has several bird nesting sites, including swifts - although in declining numbers, sadly.

Today I went into the barn and noticed a poor dead swift pressed up against the wall by the window. I was busy and just thought I'll deal with that later, when I noticed it had moved slightly, so wasn't dead!

We lifted it carefully and put it on a low roof, and left it. Went back to check 10 minutes later and it had gone. I did hear a little shriek from above. So fingers crossed!

Absolutely brilliant. Fantastic thing to do. I saved a woodpecker once which had got its leg stuck in a poorly designed bird feeder. Still makes me happy years later

How lovely. I saved a blackbird once in similar circumstances. It’s great when you realise they have recovered.

This is sweet and makes me happy. We tried to save a very young swift last year and sadly, weren’t successful.
We had a young pigeon make a recovery though!

This is lovely. Well done. I tried to rescue a baby swallow in the Algarve last year. I was unsuccessful but tried so hard. I still can’t believe I got to hold something like that in my hands. It was beautiful. Its wings were really something.

How lovely! I was out on a run last week and helped someone save a seagull that had somehow got a massive rose thorn hooked into its leg, so it was attached to the rose bush (ouch). All its mates were circling around and it was panicking but we managed to free it.

What does a young pigeon look like? I've never seen one and always wondered.

I saved a sparrowhawk once. It was sitting in the road in the city centre - I think it had flown into a bus shelter and was a bit dazed. I sat with it on my lap in my car while I phoned the rspca to see what to do with it, which apparently was a really bad thing to do. I ended up hiding it in some bushes.

I have also saved a couple of birds from some garden netting, including a magpie. I always wanted to hold a magpie, but it was quite cross with me!

This is the one I mentioned, it’s a collared dove from last summer. We took it to a local person who looks after injured wild birds- this one possibly had a broken wing.

Love the photos of all the rescuees! Little collared dove looks very happy.

Going off-piste here, one night we heard a terrible screeching outside, thought a cat had got a crow or something... went out and found a hedgehog had caught his little foot in our wooden fence! He must have thought he'd been attacked because he was fighting-mad...

Threw a towel over his head, the noise did not diminish, it was LOUD, like being next to an alarm... prised the fence apart with a chisel to release him, at which point he stopped yelling like he'd been switched off.

Watched him run up and down the path a bit to make sure his foot was okay, then released him to his night-snufflings... 😍🦔

Good on you for the swift rescue, they are my favourite birds!
We have done this, as until recently, swifts nested in the roof of our outbuilding and frequently fell down into the upper storey.
We always left one of the windows open, after we found a dazed swift pressed up against it, and I had the pleasure of letting it relaunch itself from my hands.
Alas, that particular nesting pair have been absent after quite a few years, but we still have a regular couple of pairs in our other swift boxes round the front.

Love all these stories.

I saved a goldfinch fledgling a few years ago after it flew into my window. We didn't often see goldfinches in that area. A couple of weeks later I opened my front door to find a goldfinch feather on the doorstep. I've still got it now.

I also rescued a racing pigeon. It walked into my kitchen and was quite tame. I managed to get in touch with the owner who told me to put it in a cardboard box with some food and water, and then he’d come and collect it the next day, but it sadly died over night. 😢
The owner didn’t seem that bothered.

At least it died in the safe, warm and quiet, @MagpiePi 🤗

Another hedgehog one - one night the security light in the garden kept going off - thought it was cats again... but looked out and saw a baby hedgehog running back and fore in panic - he'd followed his parent along our patio, but when the parent climbed the steps to the lawn, he was too little to follow!

So went and popped him on the lawn, where he went scurrying after his Mum, and the next day got a load of bricks and carefully constructed a hedgehog staircase... 😁

Oh, what a beautiful bird @petterflies. And what a lovely thing to do.

Actually DH reminded me that this is the second swift we have rescued. Several years ago one had managed to fly into our bedroom through the window - a sash window that was only open by a less than 6 inch gap!

It was zooming around like a mad thing (we noticed that contrary to their reputation they are able to get themselves off the ground!) and suddenly disappeared, so we assumed it had managed to get out the same way it had got in.

About an hour later DH went in to the room and heard a little rustle by the window and found it clinging to the inside of the curtain, hidden in one of the folds, so he managed to get hold of it and put it out of the window.

It was so lucky as we were packing up to go on holiday that evening.

Isn't it amazing, @TonTonMacoute , that they can fly in through a little gap like that, but then can't work out how to fly out when you throw open a window... 🤷‍♀️

And collared doves are so beautiful, @petterflies , but don't they have a raucous voice... 😄

Our vet reckons pigeon chicks are amongst the ugliest babies in the animal kingdom...

@CuddlesKovinskywe had a pigeons nest in our hedge a couple of years ago and it was amazing watching the babies develop (I had a telescope set up in the kitchen to check on them daily) but they’re really not the most attractive. We named them the Fuglies

This is my recent save. Flew into the kitchen when I had one of the French doors open and stunned itself by flying into the closed door trying to get out. Poor little thing landed on its back on the floor. I picked it up to check it was ok and then just sat and held it quietly for a few minutes. It gradually recovered and once it started to try to escape my hands I took it back outside. Little bugger wouldn’t hop off my finger at first and just sat there, it did poop on my hand though I eventually managed to deposit it into the hedge and checked on it from a distance every few minutes until it’d gone.

Oh my days you had a sparrowhawk on your lap!! That certainly doesn't happen every day!

I have held a stunned swift in my hand. I can't remember if I managed to save it but what I do remember is a big black tick came out of its feathers onto my hand.

I did manage to save a goldfinch once. I was walking by a river and I noticed this bird trying to fly up but falling back to the ground. As I got closer I could see that there was a long horse hair that was attached to a clump of soil at one end and the bird at the other end. One end of the horse hair had somehow penetrated the birds skin. The barbs on the hair meant it couldn't come out.

I held the bird in my hand and tried to remove the end of the hair. That didn't work so I bit it off as close to the bird as I could. When I released it it flew over the river and seemed unharmed.

We were sitting having a cup of coffee with the garden doors wide open and there was a sudden movement in the room. A swift had flown in and flown straight out again, with my utterly deluded cat in hot pursuit.

It was so quick we hardly even caught a glimpse.

Well done OP
Had a blue tit stunned on our patio door once, it came round but I was absolutey fascinated studying it, so beautiful they have perfect little black eyelashes ❤️ so lovely