Above: the same species and gender as the bird we saved
Sf Bird Shelter was founded when me and a friend found an injured Anna’s Hummingbird at school. The bird was so hurt that you could crouch down and touch its feathers if you’d like which our dumb selves did only making the bird scared and the situation worse. We decided the best thing to do was to lay it in a hat and with our basic knowledge on birds we gave it flowers. We also decided to give it a name during its care which would be “Sunshine” because we loved how Hummingbirds have these shiny neck feathers or “plates” as I sometimes like to call them.
We left the hummingbird and came back to check on it a while later giving it food in the form of flowers along with some water. It barely moved and was weak, hunched over its wing making us think that it may have a broken wing. If I had been able to redo it today I probably would have had an adult call Wildcare only I didn’t know about them at the time
We decided to go to the library to figure out what species it was as being at school it was the only resource at hand. The book we found had limited information with only two species and said that black-chinned hummingbirds lived in the west so we initially thought that’s what it was with our extremely limited knowledge. We also found out that hummingbirds like sugar water. After that we went to see Sunshine one last time before the final bell rang only to find she was suffering even more, we then hoped for the best and left. The next day we checked on the bird again with the sugar water we made only to discover she was gone without a trace, she probably got eaten by something or got better and flew away.
We obviously hoped that Sunshine got better and flew away. This inspired my love for birds and wildlife and about 5 months later I started bird watching. About 7 months later I bought a bird feeder (but that didn’t work out) and a year and 8 months after I got my first camera and began my life in wildlife photography. This experience helped me go from a person with basically no knowledge on birds to a enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and love for learning more birdwatcher. I hope this page has inspired you to start birdwatching too and learn more about you feathered friends!
Félicitations Nicolas. Tu as trouvé un passe-temps bien intéressant. Dommage que je n’aie pas pu te voir dans les Laurentides, on aurait pu en discuter plus longuement. Pour ma part la plus merveilleuse expérience que j’ai eue dans le domaine a été d’apercevoir un cardinal haut perché tout au sommet d’un sapin devant ma fenetre de cuisine. Je lisais, et quand je l’ai vu je suis vite montée au deuxième chercher mon appareil-photo…j’ai délicatement ouvert mais oublié d’enlever le moustiquaire…ce qui fait que la photo est grillagée et pas très claire. Mais quelle belle expérience.
Grande-tante M.
P.S. J’aime beaucoup ton blog…continue
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Hi Nicolas,
Wow. Great blog! Very well put. It was great meeting you this past Earth Day at Stow Lake. It was exciting to be there on a day with so much activity. By the way, good job on spotting the new chicks! I can’t wait to see what this next Saturday has in store for us. See you then!
-Maggie Montenegro
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Hi Nicolas,
I like your blog and I enjoyed seeing you at the Asian Art Museum yesterday.
Happy Birding!
Barbara Kinsey
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Hi, Nicolas – I’m really impressed with your blog. I had a similar experience with a bird that I found. It was a nestling, too young to fly, that fell out of it’s nest. I took it to WildCare (http://www.wildcarebayarea.org/?gclid=CJC996iSu8oCFUWVfgod8QsL1A) in Marin County, where they care for wild animals. You might want to look at their site. Unfortunately, the bird didn’t survive because the injuries from the fall.
I have a blog too and wrote about my bird experience here: https://diannefaw.wordpress.com/?s=birds+of+a+feather
Best of luck with your blog!
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