Failure as a Bird Savior

I tried to be a savior, but I failed.

I went outside this morning and noticed there was a pigeon sitting on the ground on my front porch. The little guy looked odd, just sitting there. I walked over closer to take a look and quickly realized that something was wrong. The pigeon was just sitting there looking at me, and didn't flinch or try to move or fly away.

I thought maybe he had flown into the front window and was dazed, so I figured I'd run my errands and give him time to recover. When I got back, the pigeon was still there. He had moved into the dirt and mud of my flower bed, but he was still just sitting there not moving. I got closer again and noticed he was still breathing, although it looked like he was breathing hard. His eyes were alert as well as he was following my every move. He seemed more alert than when I left on my errands so I thought I'd give him a little more time to recover from whatever was bugging him and see what happens.

After another half hour, which gave him almost an hour and a half total, he we still just sitting there and not moving. At this point, I was concerned for the little guy, so I hopped on the internet to look up what to do. I found several sites that had information on how to care for injured birds, some sites specifically about pigeons. I also found a link and called a local animal rescue place to get advice, which gave the same advice as the internet sites I found.

So here's what I did. I got an empty shoebox and cut some holes in the lid for air. I put a soft, cotton towel in the shoebox for padding and warmth. I then used some work gloves, just in case the bird had some kind of disease (i.e. West Nile), and gently picked the guy up and put him in the shoebox. All the advice I found said to give him a warm, dark, quiet place to relax and recover. If he had banged against the window he could have suffered a concussion. The dark, quiet spot to recover would help increase blood flow to his head and thus improve his recovery. I even put a small ramekan of water in the box with him in case he was thirsty.

So I did this and put the shoebox in the house for a while. After a little over an hour, with constant checking back to see how he was doing, I thought he might be getting back to normal. His breathing was more constant and steady, his eyes looked more alert, and he was trying to move a little bit. I thought he was on the way to improvement.

He still looked out of it though, so I got a little dropper and fed him some of the water. He was lapping it up quickly, so again, I thought this was a sign of him feeling better. As I continued to check on him, my hopes of him recovering got worse. His breathing got a lot slower and his attempts at movement were less and less. Before long, the movement stopped as did the breathing. His eye movement, which was constant and active the whole time, had stopped completely, with one eye closed and the other nearly closed. At this point, it was evident that the poor guy didn't make it.

I waited a little while longer, hoping he would still bounce back, but to no avail. With the gloves back on, I picked him up to look at him better, and quickly noticed he had more than just a concussion from banging into a window. It was easy to see that his neck was broken, as it was at a very odd angle and on one side I could feel the little bones bulging out and that was likely what caused his demise.

I was initially hoping that I could be some big savior and nurse the bird back to health and send him on his way. But it didn't work out that way. I guess I can only hope that I at least made him warm and comfy during his final moments and alleviated some of the pain.