After a baby kingfisher slammed into a window, wildlife artist and rehabilitation Robert E. Fuller came to the bird’s rescue. He shared a video of how he rehabilitated the injured chick and released it back into the wild.
He began by hand feeding the one-month-old fledgling chick and it started to feel so much better.
“Kingfishers naturally catch their prey by diving into water and I wasn’t able to replicate that so I had to force feed it,” Fuller explains on YouTube. “I fed it sticklebacks, caught especially for it. A kingfisher can eat up to 10 of these fish a day.”
After a couple of nights, the chick looked much better. The bird would soon be ready to release, so Fuller invited British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) bird ringer Jean Thorpe to come by and attach an ID ring onto its leg. This unique identifier will let the group identify the bird for the rest of its life.
Then came the best part – releasing the bird back into the wild! Fuller took the fledgling to the lakes where it was found. “When I got there I could hear the other kingfisher fledglings and the parent birds calling in the branches, so hopefully it will be able to return to its family where its parents will care for it,” Fuller writes.
After giving it one more “good feed” to see it through the day, the little bird flew off on its own and will soon be fishing for itself.
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