Today (yesterday), I spent around three hours getting a bird detached from a tree in the back yard. It was just hanging there from its leg, and it was hard to tell how it was attached. It was pretty high up and not reachable with any pole-like implements we had available from my ladder. My roommate helped for a while, but had to leave for work. I eventually succeeded in getting the bird down using two ropes, one put in place by throwing with a Kong dog toy on the end, the other raised with a garden tool tied to a stick. The ladder wasn’t entirely stable with the long combined pole, and the rope-throwing took many tries. I used the rope to break the branch, causing the bird and branch to fall. The branch was still alive, so the operation took a while even after I got both ropes in place. I set up some yard-waste bags and a towel below the bird to soften its landing.
The bird had some fuzzy rope-like material and string wrapped around its leg and attached to the branch. I don’t know how it happened, but it must’ve been grabbing some materials for a nest, which got caught on a tree branch and just happened to wrap around its foot as it pulled. It took a while to detach the material from the branch, and even after that, the bird still had a decent length attached. Its leg was very broken, just hanging behind it. At least three of the toes still moved though. The material was mostly around one toe, which was black. The birds wings were kind of messed up. It could only kind of flutter a bit to move itself along the ground. It also looked like it had pooped on itself while hanging upside down and was pretty messy.
It was very scared of me and after a bit, slowly made its way over to the fence around our back yard. It slid under. I then decided it would probably be better for it to take it to a place I could take care of it, so I pulled it back under the fence, put it in a towel, and took it to the front yard. I used scissors and a box-cutter to remove what I could of the material on its foot. I got it a bed of leaves, which it dragged itself behind, presumably to hide from me. I looked up what sparrows ate (it looked like a sparrow) and got it some millet. I also got a cotton ball of water and set it nearby. Later, after thinking about it, I put out a cap full of water, but by that time it wasn’t moving around anymore, just fluttering in place when it saw me. I checked on it every hour or two.
On the probably the third checkup, around 2330, it looked very dead. It didn’t move when I touched it and the eyes looked somewhat glazed. I will check it in the morning, but I don’t have high hopes. It is sad. After all that time and effort. I wonder if I should’ve just let it be when it went under that fence, or if I should’ve taken a more nurturing approach, with a towel in a box and figuring out how to get it to drink and eat. I haven’t had much luck rescuing small animals. If there ever is a next time, I will have to try to find more information about the best way to handle the situation.