Raising Wattie, the red Wattle bird

A local vet rang us and said a young wattle bird had been brought in by someone who had found it alone and cold on the ground. Usually if it is possible we return the young birds to the nest even if it has been a few hours away from the nest. We find that most adult birds accept back the baby bird and carry on feeding it as if nothing has happened. And we always ask someone to check just before sunset that the parent is back on the nest. This is the best thing for the baby bird as its parent or parents know exactly how to raise their young to maturity.

It wasn't possible in this case, the person who brought the bird to the vet didn't know where the nest was. So we now brought it home put it in a warm box with soft cloths and placed in a very quite warm room. As this little guy hadn't been fed for a while we gave it some warm honey dissolved in water with a syringe. Baby birds never like using this method of feeding at first and you have to hold them still or you end up wearing more than they eat, but after a couple of days they soon learn that this is where the tucker is coming from. Wattles also need a good supply of bugs or spiders to eat and these can be collected from our garden daily and when I can't find any I use meal worms that can be bred in containers.

This is the Wattle flower.

Only the first feed was honey and water after that we then use a nectar formula and an insect formula that you can buy from City Farmers. This is easy to use as you just add warm water, allow to settle, and then add some more warm water. Its important when a bird first comes in that you make the formula quite runny to allow the birds stomach to get used to this different food. If the bird is old enough to feed itself you simply supply a dish with the nectar and insect mix making sure that it can't stand in it. Everyday we collect fresh flowers from where I know that aren't sprayed with any chemicals on the leaves or at the base of the tree.

In this little ones case, it needed to be syringe fed with meal worms and insects for quite a while yet. You get into a routine of feeding this bird throughout the day around every half an hour when it was very young and then less as it grows and you don't need to feed them after sunset as they go to sleep. Even though the young bird can't feed itself I still place native flowers around the bird to show it the flowers it will get nectar from later when its free.

It still never ceases to amaze me how every little animal has its own unique personality or little things it does. Sometimes these things are similar in the same species and sometimes they are not. But however it amuses you or how much you grow to enjoy its company you cannot make it a pet. That means don't talk to it, don't handle it any more than to clean its box, don't feed it human food, don't allow it around your pets. This is always easier said than done, but if you do tame a bird you are lowering its natural fear and if it has been safely around a cat or dog it will learn to trust them. And chances are a cat will make a quick meal of it.

As soon as I feel a young bird is ready to go outside in an aviary during the warm sunny days I take it out. At first just for an hour and I make sure it has plenty of branches and leaves to hide in. As the bird got older it stayed out longer and longer and is fed out there too and not fed inside anymore. Nectar and flowers are left in the aviary and you would be surprised at how many young birds will taste the nectar and flowers that have been left when they don't think anyone can see them. This is when the hand feeding needs to cut back and sometimes this is tough to do as their squawks and pleading eyes beg you to feed them when ever you approach. But you can't, you cut back the number of feeds and leave them to themselves with the food. (Even when your family is telling you how mean you are).

This is the red wattle sticking its long tongue down inside the grevillia flower.

Once I feel the nights are warm enough and the young one is experimenting with food I will leave it overnight in the aviary. I'm not sure who this is more traumatic for me or the bird? (I have been known to check the forecast late at night and race out first thing in the morning to see if the bird is ok) Only to find the bird enjoying the morning sun and hungry. Collecting insects and providing flowers (grevillia and bottlebrush are a favourite) is now quite time consuming, the bird now stays outside in an aviary until it is released. I find the birds have a growth spurt once they are outside, their tails grow and feathers form, before long they are fluttering around the branches and learning the laws of gravity.

It is at this point that I check that the bird has not become tame or reliant on my company. If it flies down to me I will lift my arm and shoo it away (as painful as that is), I avoid eye contact and change the food and water containers quickly. I once raised a honeyeater that I had little contact with but it became attached to my feet as this is what it saw, but this bird was released successfully too.

And so came the time for the Red wattles release. I checked to see if the weather was going to be fine for a couple of days as you don't want to release them and have a thunderstorm come over, or a heat wave. I had observed it flying, foraging and calling. The deciding factor to release it was when I saw it catch a large dragonfly for itself. It still did not have its mature calling voice but you know when the time is right. I felt it was safe to release the bird on my property as it hadn't been recorded by the vet where this bird had been found and there was only one other wattle bird in the area. When I opened the aviary door and let it go the neighbouring wattle did come over and chase it. This one instinctively flew low into a bush to hide and didn't come out for a while. I hung a dish of nectar up on the outside of the aviary and it wasn't long until it found this and settled in for a free feed. The neighbouring wattle made a few more attempts at chasing this wattle but after a couple of days I could see they had come to an arrangement of who owned the yard. Before a week the two were playing and four months later they are still best friends and spend their time together.