If you’ve been looking up at the tops of the trees or watching neighbourhood feeders, you’ve noticed the flitting of birds newly arriving on their spring migration. If you’ve been walking around with open ears, you’ve heard the sweet musical call of the robins and almost-raucous regular trill of the red-winged blackbirds. Spring has arrived and it’s in full swing. And so we must hone our attention on our surroundings (not a hard task!)—while for some us, work begins.

This post is about what to do if you find a bird on the ground. I’ve written about bird crashes and the resources to prevent them before, and it’s also happened to me. This article about a little window-crasher has a good ending.

Basically, if you find a bird that’s been injured by a window (or a passing vehicle), it’s stunned, and it needs your protection. And you’re a very frightening predator from its perspective, so you have to be careful to not get in its face while helping it!

1. Gently pick it up, such as by wrapping your hand around it from the top, with your palm against its back and its head peeking out between your index and middle finger. This can help immobilize its wings—struggle could hurt it further.
2. If you have to carry it any distance, ask a nearby store for a paper bag to put it in. Fold the top down and carry it as gently as if it contained an egg!
3. At your destination, fashion a donut (a twisted ring) out of bathroom paper towels, put the ring in a box, put the bird in the ring, and after assessing its state of alertness, close the box to give it some rest.
4. Call a bird or wildlife rehabber and inform them of the situation. They will advise you further. You may have to deliver the bird to them.

Read on for what to do about baby birds!

If, instead, you found a baby squirrel, go here. It has a flowchart questionnaire to help you do what you need to do to help the baby.

I was born on Groundhog Day. I therefore became inordinately fond of rodents.

Also, the 2nd falls after the first of every month, and many people (e.g. my mother) say “Rabbits rabbits rabbits” on the first. Apparently some say “White rabbit” (that’s Hervé!). It’s supposed to ensure good luck for the rest of the month. Here’s a personal essay about it (not mine, someone else’s). What I tend to do, besides say it, is catch my bunnies and cut their little claws.

But on the 2nd of February, we can say “Groundhogs, groundhogs, groundhogs.”

(Aside: our dog used to drag home dead groundhogs, probably killed by the neighbouring farmer or other people’s cars, and the carcasses would basically dessicate in the yard. What can I say, dogs love rolling around in smelly wild animal things.)

Despite that gross memory (hey, humans are gross), I just cannot. get. enough. cute animal pictures, and groundhogs are about as cute as you can get. They sit on rocks and look wise, like someone you’d ask advice from. They look like they’d be a good friend. I’ve had some come by the homestead and I’m always thrilled to see them!

I once had a nice hike in BC that put me in the company of a marmot. Which brings me to these ones. Vancouver Island Marmots are fancy mountain groundhogs, and one of Canada’s surprisingly few endemic species (that means a species found here, and nowhere else). They’re endangered, and once were critically endangered; habitat and predation was a problem.

Luckily a bunch of do-gooders with cushy jobs (friends, behold, this may be work, but marmots make it a cushy job) are out there breeding, and feeding, and releasing, and spying on these little whistle-pigs. They had 26 litters in the wild in 2013 (their biggest year to date), maybe 75-80 pups. That’s not counting the babies that were captive bred in the zoos, getting ready to be sprung on a needy world, I mean, ecosystem. There are dens and caverns just begging to be re-occupied. If we have a few more good years, their population might rebound!

Watch them on YouTube:

All that to say, I really want to become a marmot shepherd. But I hear it’s a pretty exclusive job, so I want to make sure that job is around (or else made successfully redundant) by the time I am eligible to do it. That’s why I want groundhog money for my birthday. <–Donate here!

The money is going to the Marmot Recovery Foundation (http://marmots.org/). Read all about these special beasties here, and gaze (gape) at the gorgeous photos. I want us to sponsor as many of these mommas and papas as we can.

And if you miss the deadline on this fundraiser – which is February 7th – then you can always donate directly to Marmots.org.

Happy Groundhog Day! And thanks for making it a special one 🙂

(This post originally done in 2014, and revised up to date)

Back in early summer, I went to Bird Fest (I blogged about it there). I put my name into the raffle, and what luck! I won!

Nature-Expert (formerly known as CCFA, or Centre de conservation de la faune ailée de Montreal) sent me the now-famous and very effective Squirrel Buster feeder (the Plus model) from Brome Bird Care (you have to see their “404 Not Found” page!). Now, as you might know, I don’t mind feeding the squirrels, but bird seed can be a bit expensive when you have a lot of ravenous mouths to feed over the winter, so having one feeder for the birds’ exclusive use is helpful. So here goes the pictorial, from its unboxing to a play-by-play of a squirrel trying to get the goods:

So there we have it, folks. The Squirrel Buster on my front porch is definitely not for the squirrels. And that’s the way it’s gonna be!

Updates:

Here and above, some action pics of the feeder’s intended purpose. I participate in FeederWatch and take pictures because it helps me count the birds, but honestly, I take pics anyway because: cute. Here we have all six portals occupied (or maybe five). The flower box (below) stays there all year round so that they have a place to browse and get ready to launch their next volley at the feeder:

Squirrels come and go, but every year I put the feeder out in November. Here’s a fresh victim contestant, obviously destined to fail:

I’d just like to say that while I am a little gleeful here, I’m still a soft touch for the squirrels. They don’t have to scrounge for what scraps the birds scatter below. Here’s one with a nut I left out for it: