We have a RSPB sticker on the car that says “Give Nature a Home” but we mean in our garden.
Today this young Great Tit (Parus major) appeared in the living room under the fireplace. I’ve no idea how it got in, probably when the French windows were open.
He was quickly scooped up and taken outside.
He was quite perky enough to peck the finger that was trying to rescue him and he was left near the feeding station where he would see the other birds. There are no cats to worry about and he quickly hid in a clump of Alyssum by the wall. So far, so good. However, I could not resist checking to see if he had flown off a few minutes later.
He was still there and I gave him a fright. He broke cover went to the left and fell down the well!
It is not easy to recover a fledgling Great Tit from an old well with lots of nooks and crannies to hide in but he was eventually caught.
This time he was placed high on the rose bush opposite the feeding station.
Just stay in the garden and out of houses and deep wells.
a french garden 
This is such a charming story, I really hope all ends well. Lovely photos.
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He should thrive. It is a sheltered environment and it is not cold or raining. Amelia
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‘He’ is very freshly fledged, still showing plenty of yellow ‘gape’…
and I say ‘he’ because of the cheeky look in the penultimate picture…
and entering unknown houses…
and falling down wells…
gotta be a ‘he’!
Are you LPO members?
Their magazine is a lot better than the dumbed down “Birds” magazine…
or to give it the new name, “Nature’s Home”… how twee!
If you are I thoroughly recommend their “Refuge LPO” scheme…
we’ve registered La Forge….
it is really vanity “nature reserving”… but with reason…
we have a small bit of the bocage system and wish to protect it.
And there is a around 65,000 hectares now registered….
that is a lot of small “islands” for creatures to travel between.
Thr RSPB ought to follow suite…
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I’m not an LPO member. My husband is the more “bird” person, he feeds them, makes sure there is always water in different places. I expect the birds to work for me in the garden and eat all the bugs in the fruit trees and flowers. Amelia
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This has the makings of a children’s book. There must be some kind of Aesop Fable type moral in the story somewhere.
It seems like he’s kind of clumsy, for a bird.
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That’s what I thought. Some children never seem to get into trouble and others are like this bird – you never know what they are going to do next. Amelia
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Cool Amelia. Rescuing tiny birds is awesome. Sadly last week one flew into a window and it died I my hands! I was heartbroken.
We have blackberry trying to consume the house, but Ian won’t cut it because there may be birds nesting.
Our mason bees have done their thing so we are going to put mesh over the openings to prevent wasps etc. eating the poor bees. Then I am going to try harvesting in fall and putting the cocoons back into re-entry houses in spring. I hope it works.
Meanwhile it is grass cutting time, many acres! I always hope it gets cut before it flowers because I have grass pollen allergies, but we NEVER get it done it time. 😦
We are enjoying sunny weather, courtesy of climate change I am thinking. Warmer springs and colder winters. Since we moved here 16 years ago, we have never had bright weather in April, May or June. We are mesmerized by long days and sunlight, and sometimes don’t get around to eating before 8:30/9:00 p.m.
I am not complaining, but we are a little short on water.
So we have a few final details to figure out for our trip. I am getting excited about it.
Love Annie
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Cutting acres of grass! Your garden is bigger than I thought. Amelia
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Unexpected adventures for you and one little bird. Hopefully it will be a wiser, stronger bird because of this day!
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Let’s hope so! Amelia
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Very cute story! It is fledgling season, I have a couple of Northern Cardinal fledglings around my yard, the parents are still with them and bringing them to my feeding station.
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I love seeing the fledglings being fed but usually it is only the sparrows that bring their fledglings to our feeding station. Amelia
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What a cute little goof. I hope he wises up and learns to take better care of himself 😉
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Let’s hope he learns from experience. Amelia
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Fell down a well?
Oh, hell.
Recued again?
All’s well.
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Well done! Amelia
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We once found two young swifts in our house, it was rather alarming (for us and probably for them), but we managed to catch them and I threw each up in to the air and they flew off. Philip
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We had a similar problem with a couple of house martins who wanted to nest on our beams. For a few days we had to keep the windows closed or they would fly in. It took them a few days before they gave up. Amelia
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Poor little thing. It feels great when you can rescue them.
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They are so pathetic and helpless and yet so beautiful. I hope he is destined to amuse us on the peanuts in the winter and eat the aphids in the summer. Amelia
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There are so many young birds around at the moment aren’t there? I almost trod on a young great tit the other day. Dave
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Actually, I don’t see as many birds in the garden as you would think. They come to the feeding station in front of the dining room window – mainly sparrows and tits but I’ve known a lot of gardens in the south of England with more bird visitors than ours over here. I am not a bird person so I don’t know why. Amelia
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He was lucky to have found such kind helpers, Amelia! I hope his future is less full of danger, do you think he might have fallen down the chimney? A small owl fell down ours once so we covered the top with a cowl to stop it happening again.
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No, he was completely clean. Our chimneys have hats on too, which prevents a direct fall but not a hoopoe falling into the main chimney and getting into the “insert” (I don’t know the English) and behind the glass door. That happened a few years ago. Nature seems determined to invade the house. Amelia
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I’m so supportive of this scheme, but wish I had my own garden so that I could do more. There are so many benefits to people if we give nature a home. Beautiful pictures!
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Sometimes I can get quite grumpy about the work that we have to do in the garden but there are also the good times too. When we lived in Aberdeen we lived in an apartment but we pretended that Crathes Castle garden (which was very close) was ours. We visited very frequently and enjoyed it a lot. Amelia
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I can understand that, although I dream of our own garden one day 🙂
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