Korean Job Discussion Forums

[endofthewor1d]

today i found a baby magpie on the ground outside my school. it was under more of a shrub than a tree, with no taller trees around. i don't know how it got there, and there was no mother in sight. it doesn't appear to be hurt, but it's far too young to fly. i'm thinking it couldn't be more than a day out of the egg.
so i took it up to my apartment, but neither the wife nor i know how to raise a baby bird. i throw my problem out to the forum. any advice would be appreciated.
thanks.

[captain kirk]

Do a webcrawler search 'taking care of baby birds'.

Is your wife Korean? Phone some pet stores.

Back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid the folklore said that if you slit a magpies tongue it we be able to talk.

The magpies here are the same as the ones back on the Canadian Prairies.

I know you're probably going to let it loose once it's fed.

A bird that smart, it would be a shame to keep it in a cage.

Those Mynah's are the greatest talkers and they seem to do all right in cages. Only seem. I don't think ANY bird grooves on being locked up with the sky a distant dream of freedom they vaguely recall.

[endofthewor1d]

well we can close the file on this one. little birdy died while we went to the shop.

[ilovebdt]

Aw, that's sad.

[Wrench]

I hate mag pies. I shot at least 6 of them.

[just because]

I hate magpies too...

i must have been dive-bombed about 20 times and got hit in the head a few times......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[desultude]

Sorry she died. Good on you for the effort.

BTW, I love magpies. They remind me of the birds we called "camp robbers" in Alaska.

[nev]

As a child, I recall similarly finding a young and apparently baby bird, although in this case surrounded by trees. I took it to a neighbour who knew about birds, and was told that sometimes the mother will leave the babies alone for a while (to gain independence? I can't recall) before taking it back into the nest.

It's just a childhood recollection, but I think that with very young birds, without the mother, being reared by an inexperienced human hand leaves little chance for survival, and so it may be better just to leave it. Possibly - though I have no idea about magpies in particular - the mother may be back to retrieve it.

Although, equally possible, the baby bird was damned either way. Nature can be a brutal force.

[Rteacher]

Compassion should extend to all living beings, but in light of recent concerns about viruses spreading to humans you might want to be very careful about handling birds. Of course, the overwhelming probabilty is that the baby bird just wasn't strong enough to survive without its mother - but there's a slight chance that it's related somehow to bird flu. If there's still a practical way to report it to a clinic (maybe Seoul National University's) and have them do tests on what's left of the bird's body - it might be a good idea. (Don't lament for the bird's soul - it's on its way to a better body...)

[Hater Depot]

My grandmother once took care of a baby bird that had fallen from its nest but was unharmed. She didn't bring it inside, but called the Humane Society and fed it what they told her (I think it was sugar water, some milk and egg). But eventually the mother found it and killed it.

[tzechuk]

[Hater Depot]

I guess that's just what they do. Nature red in tooth and claw, and all that.

Maybe it smelled like humans too much. That's all I can think of.

[Dan The Chainsawman]

I was deported to an out of state boarding school as a wee young lad. A terrible chain of events involving a 30 30 rifle, and a power transformer. None the less during my joyous incarceration one of my chums adopted a baby magpie. He fed it and cared for it, and eventually he was able to train the bird.

The bird was quite friendly, and I spent more than one afternoon sitting on the deck behind my cabin in the warm sun with the bird looking over my shoulder as I read a book or two.

To bad the bird croaked eotw, but most times baby birds end up dying anyway. My gramps used to take in baby birds all the time, and had about a 1 in 10 success rate.

[Ekuboko]

[Swiss James]