Brown Thrasher Nest Rescue

Brown Thrashers at Destined to Fly 2018 We were thrilled when a pair of Brown Thrashers chose to nest at our farm. It was a pleasure to see them foraging for food and hearing their lovely song.

On Saturday at dusk, we noticed that something had been killed on the road. It was one of the adult thrashers!

Brown Thrashers share the care, especially once the babies hatch.

We had to find the nest. It had to be close by. The parents had been foraging under our shrubs. When we checked the snowball bush, we saw a nest deep inside. But was it the thrasher nest? The disruption caused 2 little heads to pop up begging for food. They were thrasher babies. They were begging for food, but they felt as cold as they would have if they had just been removed from a refrigerator, despite the extreme warm weather that we are having. It was obvious that they hadn’t been brooded for quite some time.

When we scooped them up, we discovered that there was a 3rd, much smaller baby, almost trampled on the bottom of the nest. Brown Thrashers are often asynchronous brooders (do not wait until all eggs are lain, before starting to brood). We brought them in and placed them in an incubator. It took 2 hours to get them warm to the touch. They begged for food the whole time. Once warm, it took another 2 hours of giving fluids, before we could feed them. A late night, but worth it, especially when their heads popped up, Sunday morning, begging for food.

10 weeks later they were released at Destind to Fly farm, where they were bord.