Friday, February 18, 2022

That must hurt

We have loads of evening grosbeaks at our feeder lately. Despite their name, they're especially active in the early morning, but we get them throughout the day.

Yesterday I noticed one bird sitting funny.

I've seen that position before. The poor thing has a broken leg. That must hurt.

His wings work fine, so at least he has a food source to keep him going.

He could even compete with quail.

But it's hard to watch him struggle.

I don't know if birds can heal from a broken leg in the wild, but at least he won't starve.

2 comments:

  1. A few years back, I had a Lesser Goldfinch visit our feeder with a Redwood cone firmly clamped onto her little leg. She was a regular at the feeder for about two weeks. Who knows how the heck she managed to do that? One day a little goldfinch showed up missing her leg. I'm assuming it's the same little gal. Saw her on and off for a month or so. Never seemed sick. The following year we had a one-legged goldfinch hanging out at the feeder. Same? I'm thinking she was.

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  2. Patrice, I had this happen with a pet quail once: the leg broke, then dried up, then fell off. I ended up separating her from the others to make sure she got food and water but she managed to live out her complete life span, about 2 years, most of that with one leg.

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