Hi everyone,
I'm a teacher and today out in the yard the kids found a baby lori.
It's very healthy and unharmed but obviously a little to early to fledge. Perhaps he's just extra adventurous!
Anyway, we think that the kids may have been picking him up and moving him around the school for some time and therefore we don't know where he came from.
I popped him in a basket and put him into a flowering tree where I have seen lorikeets before hoping his parents may see him.
Sadly he was there all day and the parents didn't find him. So I have bought him home for the night and have fed him.
Tomorrow all the kids will be away for the day so I will feed him in the morning and pop his basket into a more prominent tree where there is often a flock hanging out. I couldn't put him there today because the kids would have been everywhere and scared the flock.
my questions are as follows.
Have I done the right thing bringing him home to feed? - I know he hasn't eaten since at least 11 am.
Will he be ok tomorrow in the tree if I feed him at 9:00 and then if he hasn't been found by his family yet, again at 3:30?
How long will his parents search for him?
Don't know too much about how long the parents will continue to look, but if it is not re-united, I would suggest you contact the local wildlife rescue group for your area. A list can be found in this link. maybe give it a few hours in the morning.
http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/forum/Bird-rescuerehabilitation/What-do-if-you-find-injuredsick-bird-check-here-first
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
As a general principle it's probably most helpful to leave fledglings in place rather than take them off for artificial feeding. So often the youngsters' parents have them under surveillance & have a good sense of how to protect their young. Human intervention in nature is often for worse rather than better, sadly. Of course, rescue is appropriate if the young bird is about to be clobbered by the recycling truck or a departing A380.
Hi everyone!
im very excited to let you know there was a very happy ending.
the next day when the kids were not at school, I put our little lorikeet in a basket on top of the school garden shed. There are often flocks of loris that screech about there. After about an hour I went to check on him and he began to screech at the top of his lungs and two pairs of lorikeets swooped into the trees around him. I moved away a little and one of the pairs hopped right down to him to check he was safe.
It was SO special to see them together as the day we found him the kids had obviously moved him about the whole school for some time and his parents had not come to him at all the first time we tried him in a tree.
Best. Day. Ever!
Thank you for all the advice- I am glad I fed him overnight though because it certainly gave him the energy to call out to the flock the next day. He was SO SO hungry poor thing!