Signs of Spring

About a month ago we sent Dax and Derek to play outside and they came in telling us they found a baby bird that can't fly and they wanted to care for it. I had to go check this out because Derek asks me about once a day if he can have a pet parrot. I thought he would be saying this just to get a bird for a pet ... they were correct. I wasn't excited about this, but I felt bad for the little thing, it seemed hurt or sick, not quite right.

 I went online to find out how to care for baby birds. I found info from some bird society and it said that it is quite common for baby birds to be homeless, orphaned, etc. because they fall out of the nest and can't fly. It said they get hundreds of calls each spring and they can't possibly take care of them all so they just tell you what to do. First, it said to put the bird back where you found it and it may be the parents will come looking for it. So we did, and the parents did come back, and they walked around together for a bit. The problem was that Derek could not keep his hands off the bird and he kept picking it up and carrying it around finally the parents left. I was so mad at him. So then we tried to feed it baby formula through a medicine dropper. That is one of the things it suggested feeding the bird and we happen to have that so we tried. We couldn't get the bird to open its mouth long enough to get any in. We tried, tried, and tried. Long story short, the bird died.