Found a Blind Bird Today! *Also 2 baby squirrels last month*

[MadChickenMama]

Yup, both eyes either gone or never born with them. So weird. And I sort of wonder if it was deaf as well. I made plenty of noise as I walked up but it wasn't freaked out in the slightest. It only flew away once I'd put my hand around it. It flew off pretty wonky and landed in a nearby tree somehow. It even managed to miss the 2 story barn right next to the gate it was hanging out in. I am so curious as to how this bird is surviving. Also worried my sister's cat will get it. He's pretty dang good at catching birds that havr their sight.

Als he is so oretty! The red spot on his rump is shaped like a heart!

Oh and a few weeks ago I found 2 orphaned baby squirrels just under 5 weeks. I heard a chirp that sounded like a baby bird and when I turned to look this little squirrel literally rolled out from under my car! I knew there was a nest in the dogwood tree right next to the carport as I'd seen the mom a week or two before carrying something up into the tree and before there had never been a squirrel living in that tree.

I went and looked to see if the mom was around and that's when I found the other squirrel. I checked for more but didn't find any. Even though I checked every day I just wasn't looking in the right spots as over a week after I gave the squirrels to a wildlife rehabilitator I found the body of another baby squirrel that looked fairly fresh. There had been 5 in all. My sister found a dead one the day before I found the live ones. I found the 2nd dead one the next day, thinking it was the one my sister found. Then when she showed me the one she found we found the other one.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Are you sure that bird isn't currently sick and keeping it's eyes close? A blind wild bird could not possibly survive.

 

[MadChickenMama]

Are you sure that bird isn't currently sick and keeping it's eyes close? A blind wild bird could not possibly survive.

It's eyes weren't simply shut, though. It's hard to see in the picture, but it sort of looks like they're squeezed shut as there are a lot of wrinkles on the lids. Like maybe there aren't any eyes under them. The lids are basically flush with the head. It could be seriously...deformed? Something. It would open its beak from time to time and wiggle its tongue from side to side.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

If it was truly blind it could never have fed itself up to this point. It's pretty normal to see sick wild birds this time of year as seasons change, and birds start to migrate.

 

[Callender Girl]

Okay, it was a wild kitten, not a bird, born in my backyard, the only one of a set of three stray kittens that survived. I told my vet that the kitten wasn't opening its eyes as soon as I thought it should, and he assured me that it was just an infection. And that if I rinsed the eyes with warm water, they would open.

After more than three weeks, I took the kitten to the vet where the diagnosis was that the eyes had never fully developed; they were like little raisins in the eye sockets.

Everyone said the kitten couldn't survive. They were wrong. I spent many a day and night searching under my neighbors' porches and front steps, and looking through their garages and flower beds trying to find the gray kitten whose inattentive mother would let him wander away into traffic. Or go missing for hours while she lounged in the yard.

True, he wasn't trying to find his own food like your stray bird might have to, but the kitten's keen hearing allowed him to "follow" the flight path of turkey buzzards as they flew over the yard. He played with pine cones that he chased down the driveway, listening to the directions that they rolled.

Of course, a handicapped cat like that could never live very long in the "wild." And that's why Mr. Magoo became our housecat. Your found bird may, indeed, be sick. But nature sometimes takes care of her special ones.

 

[Chickassan]

That is a really, really old bird! Like impressively old! If you look at the beak you can judge the age. Guy might just be near the end of the line. Cute squirrels too, those are fun to raise super noisy and scratchy but fun.