Fishhawks attacked the Sandhill Crane family today. The parents managed to get away with one of the babies, but left the other behind. When they left, the fishhawks tried going after the main group, so the baby was fine. Dh took the baby out near one of the marshes, and turned it loose, thinking the parents would come back to find it. I DID NOT KNOW ANY OF THIS.
Later on, one of our neighbors' came to the house, and had this baby Sandhill Crane. It had wandered into their yard through the fence. They figured I might know what to do, so they brought it to me. I really didn't know what to do. The parents come through our yard every morning, so I just needed to provide for it, and keep it safe for one night. I cleaned out the large dog crate, and put it in there. Even the babies have very long beaks, so you can't just put food down in a bowl, and expect them to eat. I learned that the don't know how to eat on their own, so the parents feed them for almost 3 months, while teaching them to eat. So how do I feed, or water this little guy? Well, I learned that a tweezers, or hemostats can be used to grab a mealworm, wave it in front of it's face, and it will eat it that way. Well, I raise mealworms, I have hemostats, so I gave it a try. The little bugger ate good. When I held the dosage syringe with some water in front of it's face, it opened it's mouth for me, and I got a little bit of water into it. Many baby birds in the wild, don't really drink water, they get it from their food. I began dipping mealworms into the water, and feeding them to it. When a mealworm would drop it would try to get it, so I put a nice pile of them in front of it, waved the hemostats, and it began eating them. When it got full, I put it back into the crate.
This thing is only a couple weeks old, or so, and still covered with down. No feathers yet. While it's only going down to 68 degrees tonight, that can be quite chilly for a little one that's being kept warm at night by mom. I began doing some research into that too. Did you know that baby Sandhill Cranes, called colts, sleep on their mother's back. I had no idea. I watched a youtube video that showed the whole thing. It climbs on mama's back, and her wings are high enough on her back, that she covers the babies with them. I was thinking of making a sort of nest with a blanket, and using a heat lamp. Not too warm, but enough to knock off the night chill. I was out contemplating setting it up, when Dh hollered at me.
He was working in the garden, and the crane family was in the back neighbor's yard, by the fence. I grabbed the baby, and headed towards the fence. It was chirping away, and I was hoping the parents didn't hear their baby in distress, and attack me. There is a nice hedge that grows along that fence line, so when I got fairly close, and hadn't been attacked yet, I let the baby go. It chirped, they all responded, and the baby went through the fence, and hedge. They were all reunited.
