Biff, the baby starling

Friday afternoon, we were adopted by a baby bird. My son Paul saw a ball
of grey brown fuzz on the bricks outside of our backdoor and realized it
was a half fledged baby bird. Because we live on the Guadalupe River, there
are a great many cats in our area so I put the little guy in a box and we went
to look up wild bird care on the web. I think he is a European starling and I found
an excellent website:
Starling Talk on how to care for them. We have not been able to contact the
wildlife rescue person for birds in our area so we have been taking care of the
baby as best we could. For now, we are calling him Biff.

Biff probably fell from the big ash tree over where we found him but we haven’t
been able to locate any nest. His feathers were only starting to come out of the
sheath and he was very red and unresponsive when we first found him. The website
said first to get him warm and rehydrate him. We followed the
instructions and put drops of Karo corn syrup and water with a little
salt on top of his beak until he sucked it in. He eventually started begging
for food. He is eating smashed up cat food, eggs, and applesauce (with a drop
of bird vitamins once a day). Biff eats every hour for half of the day but sleeps
at night. He looks like a drab ball of fuzz except when he opens his yellow
beak so that you can see down into his big red mouth. He feet look like
delicate pink threads.

Biff is doing fine for now. We took him to church with us this morning (since he
needs to be fed regularly no matter what our schedule is) and Biff got blessed by
our priest. He was 0.4 ounces the first day, 0.5 oz. the second day, and 0.6 oz. today.
Biff now weighs as much as 3 U.S. quarter coins. He sleeps on a half sheet of crumpled
paper towel in a plastic bowl on a heating pad in a small cardboard box. Biff poops regularly
and tries to back up each time so that the poop goes outside of his nest. His white baby
fuzz is mostly gone and his new feathers are almost out of their sheaths. He cheeps
when he is hungry, even when he is asleep.

Our 12-year-old grey cockatiel, Princess Birdie, does not seem to mind Biff. She observes
him from her big cage above my desk. Biff’s box is on the file top next to the window
so he can get some sun and listen to birds outside. My daughter Jessica has the first day
of her summer job tomorrow but if she gets permission, she is going to take Biff in to work.
Biff is going to work with me tomorrow.

Here are some early Biff pictures:

Biff the starling on hand:

Biff the starling eating:

Biff the starling wanting more food:

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson