Help. Bird's nest fell over. Only 1 nestling alive.

fbn91 · Newbie Joined: Jun 05, 2007 Posts: 1

Ok, this event started out as an amazing stroke of luck, and is now a truly heartbreaking experience.

My house has a glass storm door in front of our front door. On this door we hang planter that has fake flowers in it. A bird built it's nest in this planter, we had a clear view of all her eggs the entire time. She laid 5 eggs. Just yesterday 2 hatched.

Today, I went to discover that the planter had fell from our door, all 3 eggs cracked. At first I thought both nestlings were dead but there was a visible difference in color between the two. One was greyish white, and one was still pink. Surely enough, the pink one was still moving.

I didn't know what to do. I replaced planter and placed the nestling back inside the nest. I also added some scotch tape from the base of the planter to our door to minimize the swaying in the wind. I removed the cracked eggs, and dead nestling and what I could of the splattered yokes. The nestling keeps its head down most of the time but I did see it peek up with its beak open, as if asking for food.

I have yet to see the mother, then again, we never did. She flew away when we opened the first door (wooden one). For hours now it has been undisturbed, no one even opens the wooden door anymore. I read that the nestlings need to be fed every 15-20 minutes, but my brother observed the nest from a distance for over 20 minutes with no sign of other birds.

I guess I'm asking, will the mother retake her baby despite knowing her nest fell over before, that I have replace it, and that 4 of her 5 babies have died? Or will the nestling have starved to death when I wake up tommarow.