HELP!! Baby swift fallen out of nest, what should I do?

Can you put out some shade for the baby? Leafy branches would be better than a box which would shut out the breezes.

Are the parents upset?

I've put some branches over it, it's in a terracota pot. It isn't crying out for it's mummy, which I would expect. The parents are still coming and going, but they can't land on the flat roof. It is more lively today, had it's beaky open, so I've given it some water. It's taken it, but I don't know what to feed it.
Some places saying meal worms and/or dog food. Would meaty cat food be ok? Or porridge? Or mixed together or something?

If you've handled the nestling, it is possible that the parents will not have it back. Once the scent of humans is on an offspring in such a situation, the parents will often not approach. I would suggest contacting your local equivalent of what in the U.S. would be the fish and game service, as they would have the most information on dealing with wild critters.

Birds don't have much of a sense of smell--generally they will tolerate a person replacing one of their young in its nest, if you can reach the nest without too much disruption. Otherwise you could try placing something on the flat roof that would make it easier for them to land/perch.
A lot of times a hatchling that people think is stranded or abandoned is actually still being cared for by the parents. The fact that the swift is on your roof is good in some ways--it is out of the reach of ground-based predators like cats, foxes, etc.

baby birds
Baby Birds

Warmer months bring newborn baby birds. During this time, it is not uncommon to find a baby bird fallen from the nest or fluttering around close to his/her home tree. However, as helpless and frail as these animals may appear, they are there for a reason, and they have parents who are probably watching somewhere nearby. What's the best thing to do if you find a baby bird? Most of the time, the best thing is to leave the bird right where you found him. Baby songbirds have three main stages of development and in any of these stages they are very vulnerable. Although mother nature is the absolute ruler over life and death, there are a few situations you may come across in which you may be able help the young birds.

A fallen pinkie or baby (locatable nest); A fallen pinkie or baby (unlocatable nest); An abandoned fledgling

To assure yourself that the male or female parent will return to the baby in any one of the above situations, keep your eye on the young bird for up to three hours from a discreet distance. It's important to watch for the duration of that time in order not to wrongly assume abandonment, because it's very easy for one of the parents to slip into the bush, feed the babies, and leave again by the time you've gotten up to get a glass of water or answer the phone. It's also critical during this observation time that you refrain from disturbing the reunion. If the parents are continually frightened, they may never come back. Stay out of sight and try to keep all dogs and cats out of the area. Do your best to keep the young bird out of danger, but remember that some things are out of your control. For example, a snake may come along and eat the baby bird. It is probably best not to try to save the victim, OR to kill the snake. This is nature in action. A hawk might soon come along and eat the snake! One last important consideration to make when watching baby birds is to be aware that certain species nest on the ground. If you're certain that parent bird has disappeared for good and left a nest full of offspring, call the Wildlife Rescue Hotline. And remember, bringing up birds is often a two-parent job. If the female parent has died, the male may continue where she left off, and vice versa. Be observant, cautious, and, above all, try to remember whose baby s/he really is.

In the pinkie stage, the bird is newly hatched, pink in color, and completely without feathers. Pin feathers begin to develop in the baby stage, along with soft down on the head and back. The final stage before adulthood is the fledgling. The bird will be fully feathered and will begin to learn how to eat on its own, although it will still receive care from the parent birds.

A fallen pinkie or baby (locatable nest)

If you happen to find a fallen pinkie or baby bird, locate the nest and put the bird back. The parent birds will usually resume care for the hatchling once it's back in the nest. It's absolutely a myth that a parent bird will reject a baby if it is touched by human hands. Most birds lack a strong sense of smell and therefore don't necessarily know who touched their baby.

A fallen pinkie or baby (unlocatable nest)

If you can't locate the nest, put the hatchling in a small cardboard box with some dry brown grasses on the bottom for bedding. The grass will provide warmth and a stable surface to grip (as opposed to the smooth and slippery surface of cardboard). Then, situate the box in a tree closest to where you found the bird on the ground. If you can see the nest but it's too high for your reach, situate the cardboard box in the same tree but on a branch that's reachable. The parent bird may take a few hours to get used to the new nest, but will eventually resume care of its young.

An abandoned fledgling

The procedure differs slightly for a fledgling bird. Fledglings are often mistaken for birds that are injured or unable to fly when, on the contrary, they're actually learning how to fly. A fledgling will hop out of the nest to perch on surrounding branches, or flutter to the ground, where it will spend several days to several weeks being taught by the parents how to pick up seeds or catch insects. A parent bird will actually guide the fledgling into bushes during the night to hide it from predators. If you find a fledgling in a high-traffic area such as a sidewalk or a street, move it into the cover of some nearby bushes. Otherwise, leave the bird where you found it.

Leave me alone, I live here!

If you discover a young bird out in the middle of an open field with no trees in sight, before coming to the conclusion that it has been abandoned or misplaced, try to identify the species in a field guide. Killdeer, meadowlarks, horned larks, and some species of sparrows are good examples of birds that nest on the ground in open areas. They leave their young in the cover of tall grasses or brush while out searching for food. Again, a parent bird may leave its young for up to four hours at a time, so be patient!

No really, the swift parents can't land. They eat/sleep etc in flight so there's no need for them to land really...
And as I said it's really young, too young to be learning to fly, and to be out of the nest on purpose. Thanks for all your info etc... we took the baby bird to a specialist who hand-rears birds...the same person we took baby bird 1 to... She said he was in a good condition etc... thanks again!!

It's absurd to think that swifts sleep on the wing.

Chimney swifts roost and nest in hollow trees and, in the city, chimneys or any hollow shaft. Unfortunately, even chimney sites are in short supply now because so many people cap their chimneys. The decline in population of swifts in cities is due to this, and also accounts for a rise in small flying insects including mosquitoes. Click on this link for informatin regarding swifts including plans for a backyard chimney swift roosting and nesting tower.

Here is a website showing a group of students building a free-standing chimney tower for swifts. http://www.linworth.org/swift.htm

I tried to post an image, but it's out of order.

Say what? Are you saying that I'm wrong about swifts sleeping in flight, or that it's strange that they do?

Common swifts and I believe Alpine swifts do...

New fact for me:

The roosting habits of swifts are mysterious. Except when, as adults, they crawl inside holes in buildings to breed, the species stays permanently aloft - both night and day. The birds sleep on the wing but how do they avoid collisions and preserve a safe cruising altitude? Despite being an abundant summer visitor throughout the Northern Hemisphere their nocturnal behaviour has been little studied. However, in Suffolk in 1994 several hundred were watched just after dawn. Instead of flying and gliding around in the usual rapid manner, each maintained a stationary position on gently flapping wings. Basically, the birds were hovering and did so for almost an hour until the air warmed up and normal feeding flight resumed. This observation explained why radar research aimed at unravelling their actions failed to detect what they did. By moving very little, the birds rendered themselves invisible - truly, the world's first stealth aircraft.

Then came the Swedes. In 2000, using infra-red photography, they filmed swifts roosting like bats. Hanging by their toes the birds spent the night suspended on willow branches. The mystery just got deeper!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/birds/weeklyfeature/sleepingbeauties


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Scene One: It's Saturday afternoon. The day had begun with rain, but it's clear now and the residents of West Lewis Street in Hillcrest/Mission Hills area are outside enjoying the sun and crisp air.

Suddenly, a "huge flock" appears overhead. (Enter with great drama.) Hundreds of small, dark birds with long, stiff wings and slightly rounded tails begin to wheel and somersault en masse, at times just 25 feet or so off the ground, barely making a sound.

Then they swoop in, diving like airborne lemmings down the chimney of one of the homes. The house is for sale. Everybody thinks the owner is away, but moments later, Nat comes running out, wide-eyed, wondering, says neighbor Suzanne Dukes, whether he's "on acid or what?"

"It was a Tippi Hedren moment."

Scene Two: Nobody knows what to do next, until they begin to see birds smacking into windows, attempting to exit. Nat, the homeowner, runs back inside to frantically open windows and doors. Some birds fly out, but many more remain clinging to walls and curtains. Nat starts picking them up and carrying them outside, where they fly off.

"I took a few," said Dukes, "and to my surprise they were sleeping in my hands - eyes closed. For about a minute or so, I looked at one of them. Only after I blew on one did he open his eyes and fly off. They were very tired."

Sometime later, the rest of the flock rouses itself. Most of the birds had remained in the chimney, snoozing. They billow out of the chimney like smoke and disappear, leaving only a houseful of soot behind.

Dukes thought the birds were chimney swifts, which get their name from their preferred place for breeding and roosting. She's close. Chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica) are a common sight in the eastern half of the United States, but very rare here. The visitors to West Lewis Street were Vaux's swifts (Chaetura vauxi), a closely related species that prefers forest accommodations but will apparently settle for a suburban tract home when a hollowed out redwood or fir isn't available.

The swifts stopped by while en route from Mexico and points farther south (where they winter) to nesting sites in the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. It's a long migratory flight, and the birds get tired, said Phil Unitt, an ornithologist at the San Diego Natural History Museum and editor of the journal Western Birds.

"They were looking to roost overnight," Unitt said. "If nobody had bothered them, they would have left the next morning and nobody would have been the wiser."

Obviously roosting in chimneys and other urban locales poses a distinct danger to the swifts. A few years ago, Unitt said a flock dove into navy base boiler and were collectively cooked. To avoid such a fate, he encourages San Diegans to close their chimney flues in early April, or keep chimney openings suitably capped.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040428/news_1c28singular.html

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In every bird book I look at, claims are made that swifts do almost everything in the air, including mating and sleeping. How is this known? If it is from monitoring behavior at the nest, how can one be sure the swifts aren't secretly performing these behaviors somewhere else? -- Barry Drees, Oftersheim, Germany

The swift family consists of about 80 species worldwide. The family name, Apodidae, means "without feet." Swifts do have feet, of course, but the birds spend so much time in the air that their feet have evolved into tiny extremities. Swifts can barely walk but do have strong claws, which they use to cling to vertical surfaces. Called "flying cigars," swifts can log more than 500 miles in the air on a single day during the breeding season.

Swifts are so well adapted to aerial life that most normal functions are carried out on the wing - foraging, eating, drinking, bathing, courtship, gathering nesting materials, and yes, mating. Copulation is rarely complex or long lasting; it consists of a few seconds of contact between the male and female bird's cloacas, the all-purpose passage for waste and reproductive materials. For aerialists as accomplished as swifts, this is not hard to accomplish while flying. Swifts do, however, also mate at the nest site. For North American Chimney Swifts, this is the more frequent site of copulation. As for sleeping, swifts do so at a roost site, often in large groups inside a chimney or similar structure, a cave, or a hollow tree, depending on the species.

You are correct that much of what is known about swifts comes from observations made at the nest, as well as at roost sites, since these are the only places swifts are "grounded" enough for humans to study them.

For excellent information on establishing and maintaining swift nest sites, contact the North American Chimney Swift Nest Site Research Project, developed by the Driftwood Wildlife Association, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and Texas Partners in Flight. See "Learn More" in our February 2003 issue (p.84) for contact info. The article "The Bird in Your Chimney" in the same issue (p.36) contains more on Chimney Swifts.




http://www.birdersworld.com/brd/default.aspx?c=a&id=214