82and counting Loc: FAIRBURY,NEBRASKA

This Redwing Blackbird showed up at a feeder back of the house by the pond about 10 days ago. We noticed different behavior and then the stick,straw,weed or something sticking out of it's. body. Later we noticed that the stick went clear through it's body and that it has a wound on it's head. The bird comes to the feeder several times per day and has been coming back for some time and seems to be eating and flying away with no worsening condition.Questions?Has any one seen any thing like this? What is the item stuck in the bird? Is there anything any way to get it out? What caused it to happen? We wonder if it was attached by a hawk and drove or dropped causing the problem?Any ideas?

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ConnieLynn

have you tried to catch it? It could just be stuck in it's wings.

82and counting Loc: FAIRBURY,NEBRASKA

We tried but it is way too active

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

Looks like someone has resurrected a bird-catching techniques used by a number of aboriginal peoples around the world.

A long, slender stick with some sort of absorbent stuff mixed with “bird lime” (a sticky resin or plant sap ) on the end is shot, via a short blowgun (so the sticky end doesn’t hang up in the tube) or a bow. The idea being that the adhering stick sufficiently interferes with flight, permitting the bird’s capture.
This RWB seems to have the stick stuck to the wing patagium or shoulder area, still permitting flight, but causing the stick to abrade the bird’s head during repeated wingbeats.

With some luck, this RWB may survive until it molts the feathers to which the stick is adhered.

I heard about this old technique at the age of twelve at a talk on traditions of subsistence hunting given by some vaunted authority at the local museum ...and of course looked up a recipe for bird lime in the Encyclopedia Brittanica as soon as I got home. So, with cotton balls, home-made bird lime, long sturdy straws from a hefty broom....and a short, small diameter aluminum tube I ventured into the neighboring woodland with the mindset of a primitive hunter-gatherer.

Not barely ten yards into the primordial forest a feisty bluejay scolded me from only a few yards away.

Bullseye!

Anyway, it Worked like a charm. She floundered about on the ground with the damned stick frustrating her every effort to gain flight.

I now suspect that she (?) was perhaps being defensive of a nearby nest.

I felt awful ! Catching her easily I carefully detached the sticky end of the broomstraw from her plumage...but by that time some wing feathers were stuck to breast feathers...and I wound up having to pluck every damnably contaminated feather to permit free excursion of the wing.

Gratefully (my response, as well, I’m sure, as hers) she flew - apparently unimpaired - from my opening hands as I sent her airborne.

I felt terrible having witnessed the terrified struggling and cries of that beautiful jay.

Never did it again!

Dave

dancers Loc: melbourne.victoria, australia

my heart hurts for this poor bird.

rmm0605 Loc: Atlanta GA

Yikes! Call your local animal rescue people, if you have them. Otherwise, try catching it with a butterfly net or equivalent.

bluezzzzz Loc: Stamping Ground, KY

Looks like to me that he got himself tangled up in some cattails. That's where they like to hang out. Best case, it'll work itself loose.

82and counting Loc: FAIRBURY,NEBRASKA

thanks for reply and it does look like it may be cattail stem---too active to catch---wait and hope