Question

[montanacowboy]

Today I experienced something I had never seen before. A small bird hit the window and crashed to the ground. I ran to the window and looked out to see if it was OK but immediately another small bird of the same feather flew down on top of the fallen bird and began to ruffle it's feathers and peck him on the body as if to revive it. This continued for about 45 seconds and when the fallen bird did not respond, it flew away. I waited for a while to see if it had just been stunned and after a while decided it was dead, went out with some paper towels to pick it up. When I reached down and picked it up, it's little eyes opened very bright and looked at me for a short second and flew right out of my hands. I have never seen activity where another bird tries to revive a fallen comrade. It was quite a moment and I am still not quite over the experience.

[SergeStorms]

1. I've seen pigeons do that...

but from your description this was definitely not a pigeon.

[montanacowboy]

2. No

It was a small finch like bird

[montanacowboy]

6. Just wondering if

Anyone had ever seen this type of bird behavior before

[TigressDem]

3. What was the question?

Sweet story.

Did you want to know if anyone else had the same type of experience?

I am not sure what to make of it either.

[Bayard]

4. Maybe the second bird was going through the first one's pockets looking for loose change

Sorry!


Glad the little one recovered.

[Frasier Balzov]

5. I have seen a parent try to revive a fatally injured fledgling.

[perfessor]

7. Birds are quite smart,

and have evolved complex social behaviors. I have not observed what you saw, but I'm not surprised.

On another note, here in Illinois we get hummingbirds which come up from Central America for the summer. I have good reason to believe that the same birds that visit our feeders one year, are the same that come back the next. That's pretty impressive.

[Skittles]

8. are you sure they weren't fighting prior to the crash

I've seen some birds going at it, yes INDEED

[Delmette2.0]

9. I watched a bird chase and corner a cat.

She mistakenly chased the wrong black and white cat who got to her baby after it fell out of the nest. It as a very interesting 10 minutes.