Care and Safety

What to Do With an Injured Bird

Most people want to help immediately. The order of the decisions matters more than the speed, and the first decision is whether this bird is injured at all.

Finding a bird on the ground that will not fly away is upsetting, and the instinct is to pick it up straight away. Resist that for sixty seconds. A large share of the birds people rescue are not injured: they are stunned from hitting glass, or they are healthy fledglings that are supposed to be on the ground. Handling either one makes things worse.

So the sequence is: look, decide what you are seeing, then act. Handling a wild bird is genuinely costly to it. The stress alone can kill a weakened animal, and a panicked bird that flies off into a fence or a road is not a bird you have helped. For the cases that do need help, the useful action is almost always a phone call to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator rather than anything you do with your hands.

This page covers how to read the signs, what to do about a window strike and how long to give it, the cases where you should do nothing, why cat-caught birds are always an emergency, how to handle a bird safely if you have been told to, and how to find a rehabilitator in a few minutes. If the bird looks unwell rather than hurt, with fluffed feathers and half-closed eyes and no wound, that is a different problem and it is covered in there is a sick bird at my feeder.

First, work out what you are actually looking at#

Watch from 15 to 20 feet (4.5 to 6 m) for a minute before you approach. How the bird holds itself tells you most of what you need.

The single most common mistake at a feeder is treating a healthy fledgling as a casualty. The second is treating a window strike as a broken bird. Both are covered below, and getting them right will spare you and the bird a lot of trouble.

The window strike, and the dark container method#

A bird that hits glass is concussed, not necessarily broken. Many recover on their own within 15 minutes to an hour or two and fly off with no help at all. The danger in that period is not the injury, it is a cat, a dog, a crow or a car finding a bird that cannot move.

If the bird is somewhere safe, the best thing you can do is nothing except keep pets indoors and watch from a window. If it is exposed, on a path, a driveway or open lawn, this is the method:

1. Put on gloves. Approach quietly from behind and drape a light towel over the bird, then lift it with both hands, supporting the body without squeezing the chest. Birds breathe by moving the chest wall, so pressure there suffocates them.
2. Place it in a paper bag or a cardboard box lined with a paper towel or an old cloth, not a wire cage, which shreds feathers. Punch air holes if the container is closed.
3. Close the container and put it somewhere dark, quiet, room temperature and completely away from people, pets, music and traffic noise. Darkness is the single most calming thing you can provide.
4. Do not look in every few minutes. Every check is another stress event.
5. After about 30 minutes, carry the closed container outside to a sheltered spot, open it, and stand back. A recovered bird will leave under its own power immediately.
6. If it does not go, close it up and try once more after another 30 minutes.

The time limit is the part people skip. If the bird has not flown after roughly two hours in the dark, it is not simply stunned. Head trauma with internal bleeding or swelling, and fractures of the coracoid or shoulder, are common in collisions and none of them resolve in a box. At that point call a rehabilitator. Do not keep a bird overnight hoping it will improve by morning.

Afterward, deal with the window, because a glass surface that kills one bird will kill more. Markers spaced about 2 inches (5 cm) apart on the outside, screens, and feeder placement either within 3 feet (0.9 m) of the glass or beyond 30 feet (9 m) are the interventions that work, and they are set out in window strikes and distance from windows.

When not to intervene#

There are more of these cases than people expect, and getting them right is as valuable as any rescue.

• A feathered young bird hopping on the ground with a short tail and stubby wings is a fledgling doing exactly what it should. Parents are nearby and feeding it. Move it out of a road if you must, then leave. Full detail in I found a baby bird.
• A bird sunning itself, lying flat with wings spread and beak open on a warm day, looks alarming and is completely normal.
• A hawk on the ground with prey is eating, not injured. Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks hunt at feeders and mantle over a kill on the lawn.
• A bird that is clearly alert and flies strongly when you approach does not need catching, whatever else is going on.
• A dead bird is not a rescue. Handle it with gloves or an inverted bag, double bag it for the trash, and if you are finding several, check whether your state agency wants a report, especially in the context of avian influenza.

There is also the hard case: a bird with an obviously catastrophic injury and no rehabilitator reachable. It is not your job to make that decision alone. Call anyway, out of hours, and leave a message. Meanwhile a dark, quiet container away from disturbance is the kindest available holding condition.

Cat-caught birds are always an emergency#

This is the rule most people do not know, and it is the one that changes outcomes. A bird that has been in a cat's mouth needs a licensed rehabilitator even if you cannot find a mark on it.

Cat saliva carries bacteria, including Pasteurella species, that are highly dangerous to birds. A cat's canine teeth make punctures that seal over instantly and hide under feathers, so the wound is invisible while the infection is not. A bird released after a cat attack often looks fine, flies off, and dies of septicemia a day or three later. The treatment is prompt antibiotic care from someone licensed to give it, and there is no home version.

Never offer food or water#

This is the most common well-meant mistake after handling. Do not put out a dish, do not use a dropper, and do not moisten the beak.

Handling, and keeping yourself safe#

Handle a bird only when a rehabilitator has told you to, or when it is in immediate danger from traffic, a cat or a dog. When you do:

• Wear gloves, disposable or leather depending on the bird, and wash your hands with soap and water afterward regardless. Feeder-associated organisms including salmonella can infect people.
• Use a towel to cover the bird first. Covering the eyes calms it and keeps beak and feet away from your fingers.
• Support the body and fold the wings gently against it. Do not compress the chest.
• Use a ventilated cardboard box with a soft, non-looped lining. Avoid towels with loose threads, which catch toes and claws.
• Keep the container closed, dark, at room temperature and out of the sun. A car in the sun kills birds fast.
• Transport quietly. Radio off, no conversation, no phone speaker.

Finding a licensed wildlife rehabilitator#

A wildlife rehabilitator is licensed by the state, and often federally as well, to receive and treat wild animals. Finding one usually takes a few minutes.

1. Search for your state wildlife or natural resources agency plus the phrase wildlife rehabilitator. Most states publish a licensed list by county.
2. Use AnimalHelpNow, a free service at animalhelpnow.org and as an app, which maps wildlife emergency responders by your location and is the fastest option when you do not know where to start.
3. Call a local Audubon chapter or nature center. They generally know who takes songbirds and who is currently accepting them.
4. Call a veterinary clinic. Most small animal practices cannot treat wildlife themselves, but they usually hold a referral number, and some will stabilize a bird until a rehabilitator can take it.

Call before you drive. Rehabilitators specialize by species, they run at capacity in spring and summer, and some cannot legally accept certain birds. When you call, describe the species if you know it, what happened, whether a cat was involved, what the bird is doing now, and how long it has been like that.

The law, briefly#

In the United States, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects almost all native bird species, along with their nests, eggs and feathers. Keeping one, even temporarily, even to help, even with excellent intentions, is unlawful without a federal permit. That is why rehabilitation is a licensed activity and why the answer to almost every question on this page ends with a phone call to somebody who holds the permit.

The practical exceptions are the introduced species that the Act does not cover, notably house sparrows, European starlings and rock pigeons. Even there, transporting and caring for an injured wild animal is a skilled job you have not been trained for, and a rehabilitator remains the right call. Canadian readers are covered by the Migratory Birds Convention Act plus provincial legislation, with a similar practical result.

None of this is meant to discourage you. Noticing an injured bird and making one phone call is a genuinely useful thing to do. The point of the permit system is that the bird gets treated by someone who can actually treat it, and your part is to keep it dark, quiet, contained and unfed until you can hand it over.