Saving Public Birds | 拯救小鸟鸫鸫
其实我知道《拯救大兵瑞恩（Saving Private Ryan）》中，private 是“列兵”的意思，和public完全不沾边。而且Saving Public Bird在英语中也完全不通，但我还是想强行玩这个梗。
去年（2023年）5月3号，武汉下了一场大暴雨。雨停后，一只小浣熊（Procyon guizishanensis）外出觅食，在一棵樟树（Camphora officinanum）下发现了一个被摧毁的乌鸫（Turdus mandarinus）巢。巢里有四只雏鸟，其中两只已经掉在路上死了，另外两只还活着，可能是因为落在灌木丛里，受到了一定缓冲，才没摔死。当我发现它们时，它们正站在灌木丛边缘叫着。
虽然巢摔成了三块，但还算完好，稍作拼接还能用。我找来一个水果店的塑料碗，在底部钻了几个孔防止积水，然后把拼好的巢放进去，防止它散架。巢摔下来时，里面的垫材也散落了。我到附近的一个养鸡鸭的养殖场，问老板能不能拿一点鸡鸭的绒羽。他说可以，但只有湿的。我说谢谢了，那就不用了，最后只能在巢里铺了一些布代替。
由于树太高，我没办法把巢放回原位。考虑到亲鸟还在附近，还给小鸟喂了乌鸫面（subordo Lumbricina），我就决定把鸟窝暂时放在树下的灌木丛底部，认为亲鸟肯定会来照顾的。我把两只死掉的小鸟装起来，带回去放在冰箱里冻起来了。
然而，当晚十点我去查看时，发现亲鸟并没有回来，窝里的小鸟粪囊也没被处理。我去请教老师，老师说如果巢放在地上，亲鸟通常不会再去。加上天气预报显示当天晚上会再下一场暴雨，我决定先把小鸟带回家。
这两只小鸟中有一只稍微健康些，能叫能乞食，非常活跃（也很吵）；另一只则不怎么动弹，看起来一条腿可能摔伤了，它乞食的次数也比较少，乞食时头也抬不起来，嘴还经常被巢材卡住。
第二天（5月4号）早上，我急忙带着小鸟出门，估计它们都饿坏了。我去了五金店，买了一个梯子和一些铁丝。我本来问老板，我买你的铁丝，你能不能把梯子借我用一下，他说不借，然后我就只好掏钱买了，这么一个木头钉起来的梯子居然要145。
扛着梯子、端着小鸟（真是奇怪的描述），我来到樟树下，架好梯子爬上去。这梯子比我人还高比我浣熊还高，站在上面把我吓坏了。我用铁丝将巢固定在一个树杈上，绑紧后赶紧下来，差点摔下来成了路杀浣熊（下面是马路）。
下树后，我在附近转了一圈，看到一只乌鸫，不确定是不是它们的家长。我拿出手机播放鸫宝的叫声（早上录的begging call），一边放一边思考，乌鸫亲鸟能通过叫声识别自己的孩子吗？它会不会觉得我把它的孩子压成了一个长方形的薄饼？（哈哈哈哈哈哈哈手鸡）
播放了一会儿后，另一只乌鸫（不记得两只的性别了）也出现了，叼着一条乌鸫面。我逐渐把它引到树下，它没有直接过去，而是叼着乌鸫面四处张望，不知道是因为警惕还是没认出这个碗是它的巢。张望了一会儿，它叼着乌鸫面飞过去喂给小鸟，然后跑到附近的草地上继续制作乌鸫面抓蚯蚓。
两只小鸟乞食时都把头伸得很长，那只状态不太好的小鸟应该不至于抢不到食物。也许那只小鸟比较聪明，知道我不是乌鸫，所以不跟我乞食？
亲鸟喂食的频率特别高，果然孩子给饿坏了。可能也是因为刚下过雨，乌鸫面的原材料蚯蚓特别多。
我开始担心透明的大平层太显眼，缺乏隐蔽性，想给它刷成绿色，但又怕颜料的气味对小鸟不好，于是作罢。然后就我把梯子带回去，走人了走浣熊了。
当天下午又下了一场雨，我去树下查看，没有积水，看起来钻的孔足够了。
5号和6号我又去看了，亲鸟都在窝里，但7号就不见了。我查了一下资料，《中国动物志》里提到，吴至康等（1984）在贵州记录到“4月28日已见满窝卵（6枚），5月3日已采到即将出巢的雏鸟”，所以乌鸫雏鸟从孵化到出巢大约需要6天。考虑到这两只雏鸟被我捡到时显然已经发育了一段时间，并不是刚孵化的，所以3-4天出巢是合理的。
我想拿梯子上去看一下，如果亲鸟受惊弃巢，我可能会考虑把小鸟带回家自己养；如果小鸟已经出巢，我就把巢摘下来，带回去给乌鸫标本（之前捡到的一只乌鸫雄鸟尸体）用。
结果发现我的梯子被人偷走了。
Actually, I know that Private in Saving Private Ryan refers to a military rank, and has nothing to do with public. Moreover, Saving Public Bird doesn’t make any sense in English either, but I still wanted to make this pun.
On May 3rd last year (2023), a heavy rainstorm hit Wuhan. After the rain stopped, I (Procyon guizishanensis) went out in search of food and found a destroyed Chinese blackbird (Turdus mandarinus) nest under a camphor tree (Camphora officinanum). There were four nestlings; two had fallen onto the road and were already dead, while the other two were still alive, possibly because they fell into the bushes and were cushioned from the impact. When I found them, they were calling from the edge of the bushes.
Although the nest had broken into three pieces, it was still relatively intact and could be pieced back together. I found a plastic bowl from a fruit shop, drilled some holes in the bottom to prevent water buildup, and placed the nest inside to hold it together. The bedding material in the nest had scattered when it fell, so I went to a nearby farm that raised chickens and ducks and asked the owner if I could get some feathers from them. They said ok, but they only had wet ones. I thanked them and declined, opting to line the nest with some cloth instead.
The tree was too tall for me to place the nest back up there, and since I saw the parent birds nearby still watching and even feeding them some "blackbird noodles" (subordo Lumbricina), I placed the nest under the bushes and went home, thinking the parent birds would surely take care of them. I collected the two dead nestlings and brought them home, putting them in the freezer.
But when I checked again at 10 p.m., there were no signs of the parent birds returning, and the nestling fecal sacs hadn't been cleaned. I consulted my teacher, who said that if the nest was placed on the ground, the parents wouldn’t return. And since the weather forecast predicted more heavy rain that night, I decided to take the two live nestlings home.
Of the two, one was slightly healthier, vocal, active, and begging for food (very noisy too), while the other was weaker. It seemed like one of its legs might have been injured from the fall. This one begged for food less often, and when it did, it couldn't lift its head properly, and its beak often got stuck in the nesting material.
The next morning (May 4th), I hurried out with the nestlings (they must have been starving by then) and went to a hardware store to buy a ladder and some wire. I asked the owner if I could borrow a ladder if I bought the wire, but he refused, so I had to buy one. This wooden ladder cost me 145 yuan!
Carrying the ladder and nestlings, I headed to the camphor tree, set up the ladder, and climbed up. The ladder was taller than me, and it scared me quite a bit. I used the wire to secure the nest onto a branch, tightened it, and hurried back down, almost falling and becoming roadkill raccoon (since there was a road below).
Afterward, I wandered around the area and saw a blackbird, though I wasn’t sure if it was the parent. I played the begging call I had recorded that morning on my phone and wondered if the parent blackbirds could recognize their own chicks by sound. Would they think I’d squished their kids into a rectangular pancake?
After playing the sound for a bit, another blackbird (I don’t remember the gender of either bird) appeared, carrying a blackbird noodle. I gradually lured it to the tree, but instead of going directly to the nest, it looked around cautiously, still holding the noodle. I wasn’t sure if it was being cautious or if it didn’t recognize the white bowl as its nest. After some time, it finally flew over and fed the noodle to the chicks, then flew to a nearby patch of grass to continue making blackbird noodles catching worms.
While begging for food in the nest, both chicks stretched their heads out long, and the weaker one probably wouldn’t have trouble getting food. Maybe that chick was smarter and knew I wasn’t a blackbird, so it didn’t beg me for food?
The parent birds were feeding them very frequently; the chicks must have been starving. It might also have been because of the rain that blackbird noodle ingredients worms were especially abundant.
I began wondering if the clear plastic bowl was too obvious and less hidden. I thought about painting it green but was worried that the paint’s smell might be harmful to the chicks, so I gave up on that idea. Then I left away.
That afternoon, another rainstorm hit. I checked the nest under the tree, and there was no water buildup, so the holes I drilled seemed to be sufficient.
On the 5th and 6th, I went to check again, and the parent birds were still tending to the nest. But by the 7th, they were gone. According to some research I found in Fauna of China, Wu Zhikang and others (1984) recorded that in Guizhou, "six eggs were already found in a nest on April 28th, and by May 3rd, nestlings ready to fledge were collected." This suggests that the blackbird’s nestling stage lasts about six days. Considering that the two chicks I found had already been developing for some time and were not newly hatched, so 3-4 days to fledge seems like a reasonable timeframe.
I thought about climbing the tree to check. If the parents had abandoned the nest due to disturbance, I might consider taking the chicks home to raise myself. But if the chicks had already fledged, I would remove the nest and take it home for use with a blackbird specimen (from a male blackbird we previously collected).
Then, my ladder was stolen.
