Injured Greenfinch by Str4wB34ry

Photography • Animals • posted on Aug 31, 2009

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Description

When in the garden I noticed a young greenfinch trying to get onto the seed feeder, with difficulty. He eventually did and just sat there not eating. I approached, with my camera (thinking it a good opportunity for pics from a distant) but I managed to get quite close and he didn't fly away! I even managed to call Philip to look and he still sat there. Phil came back with some seed and approached the young with his hand outstretched and he still didn't fly off. We could then see he had a damaged left eye and could only see us from his right side. He was a mess - he had seed husks on his right eye and a feather over his left eye but underneath the left eye was a large orange blister which had caused the eye to close. I took lots of photos of Philip feeding him with seeds and he even managed to pull out the feather from his eye. He must have been in such pain and such shock that he couldn't move and he allowed us to get that close. A while later I approached the bird with some water and seeds in a jam jar lid and fed him again. It was so sweet watching him from such a close distance - I even stroked the front of his chest! We have 2 short videos as well, please have a look at them on 'Youtube'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZwSS36SYuo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB84GVYR6Ps We then came away and the bird stayed for most of the afternoon, just sat, dozing on the seed feeder. We phoned the RSPB for advise but nobody was home. Sunday we had a reply to an email, which mentioned that the bird probably had one of two diseases and was too ill to treat. The bird wasn't there on Sunday morning and we were out the rest of the day. He seemed fine when we last saw him but there are cats in the area and he would be too slow to get away. Having looked around the garden, there's still no sign of him!! Such a shame.

Comments (15)

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goodoleboy

6:52PM | Mon, 31 August 2009

A marvelous sequence of shots depicting the fate of this unfortunate bird. Happy you performed the necessary remedial steps to remove the feather from the eye and nurse it along.

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Marty_Mcfly84

6:53PM | Mon, 31 August 2009

what a wonderful moment with another creature, to bad you didn`t take him in.......

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Alex_Antonov

7:34PM | Mon, 31 August 2009

Remarkable work!

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danapommet

9:02PM | Mon, 31 August 2009

Very compassionate attempt to save this little finch. Beautiful collage with lots of detail shots. Dana

whaleman

12:11AM | Tue, 01 September 2009

Perhaps he did make it to another place, who knows? At least you did everything you could. You cannot always have a happy ending. My grandmother nursed a hawk with a broken wing. She set the wing and hand fed the bird for months until it was able to fly again. Two days before its scheduled release she came home to find it dead - it was flying around the room and got a talon caught in a curtain and could not free itself. On the other hand I once found a bird almost dead, unable to stand. While holding it and looking for something wrong, I finally saw a huge berry stuck down its throat. I managed to just reach the berry with the sharp point of a can opener and removed it. The bird immediately started taking large breaths and after 10 minutes, with many small children about by this time, the bird could stand up in my palm, As my aunt went for her camera the bird walked to my finger and perched there for about 30 seconds, then emitted two startlingly loud chirps and flew off to the absolute delight of the kids watching. It felt good, still does!

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IO4

1:03AM | Tue, 01 September 2009

Sad story:( I hope he was okay in the end. Great pictures though:)

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kgb224

2:00AM | Tue, 01 September 2009

So glad you could help this bird.Wonderful capture.

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debbielove

6:37AM | Tue, 01 September 2009

You did good! You could do no more... Shame the RSPB couldn't be asked to reply.. Mind you .. Bank Holiday.. No-one there... All down the pub! This is Britain.. Great series of shots.. Rob.

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jendellas

2:32PM | Tue, 01 September 2009

Poor little fella, good job he found you. We had a ring necked dove fly into our window today, unfortunately he died. We were very sad & kept him a while just in case & then buried him.

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stick

6:03PM | Tue, 01 September 2009

Poor little guy, you did what you could. Awesome video, I bet he appreciated your help.

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tennesseecowgirl

9:45AM | Wed, 02 September 2009

awww poor guy I can remember caring for a badly injured baby bunny I found in my garage my cat had gotten to the poor thing I knew there was nothing I could really do but I tried to make him comfortable. Nice work, have a nice day!

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durleybeachbum

10:26AM | Wed, 02 September 2009

I had a young greenfinch window-strike this week, the Sparrowhawk takes one and the the others scatter. It was killed otright, so I gave it to the fox. Looks like your patient had Trichomonosis, it would not get better.

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