wildlife-arc.org.au

Seventeen came into care a couple of days before Christmas 2009.

A nice lady driving down a road saw in the distance two workmen coming from a house and throwing something repeatedly on the ground and then things flying in the air above the workmen.  Intrigued she stopped at the spot.  Both workmen had gone inside the house and she saw what looked like broken clay pots on the ground with little birds hovering above them. Intrigued, she got out of her car and on closer examination she found to her horror a number of baby birds in what she then realized were broken nests.

Using her skirt she started collecting all the babies.  She had just finished when one of the workmen came out and told her to go and leave them alone as they were vermin. (It is an Australian native - ed.  http://birdsinbackyards.net/species/Hirundo-ariel).

She got into her car with babies still wrapped in her skirt and drove down the road a little before stopping and finding a beach towel on the back seat; transferred the babies to the towel and off to the local vet she drove with her precious cargo.

from January 2010 Newsletter

These chicks came into care after the massive tree their nest was in collapsed onto a house causing extensive damage.   They were found by the tree lopper called to quote on removing the tree off the house roof.  An Arborist was called to advise on cutting that section of the trunk out & re-locating section to another tree.  Unfortunately the section was so large and so heavy that no other tree in the vicinity would support its weight; hence the babies had to come into care.  Weighing 147 & 154 grams we estimate them to be 7 to 10 days old.  Home owner a lovely lady was very concerned over the fate of the chicks.

Unfortunately an artificial nest could not be made and hung in a tree as the home owner did not want the worry of them being there without human supervision (in case they fell out of make shift next) due to the fact that she was going to hospital the next week for major surgery.  Now she is home again an artificial nest has been made and we hope to reunite parents and chicks.