the little bird is not a mammal

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The little bird is not a mammal.

I know how mammals work. That makes sense. I am a mammal. 

I don’t know all mammals. I think veterinarians are amazing. Doctors for humans learn about one mammal. Veterinarians?  Must learn about EVERY mammal! And, also, animals who are not mammals. (That is just crazy talk, but veterinarians do it.) 

And I don’t know all mammals. But I know dogs and cats. I have nursed sick dogs and geriatric dogs and have given a dog the Heimlich maneuver (which you do not ever want to have to do). I have nursed kittens too tiny for food whose eyes are not open yet to walking talking blinking hopping attack happy kitten mode. 

But I don’t know birds. 

Especially wild birds. 

I did not grow up with birds. I don’t think like them. And they don’t think like me. 

And I have a little swallow nestling on the balcony. 

And I don’t know how to save it.

This is not the first baby swallow to take a plunge out of the nests here. It is the first baby swallow was alive when I found it. The other two were too little and were gone when I found them. But this little guy has some feathers, and can hop around. And this little guy is talking to the swallow parents now. 

Talking to the parents, if you are human and a kid and snuck out of the house, is usually not a good thing. But, if you are a fledgling swallow and out of the nest, this is a very good thing. Wild life people I called say the parents will often keep feeding the baby swallow, even when the baby swallow is not in the nest, if it is on the ground and they are talking.

And they are talking.

In most situations with small (mammal) baby animals. I can do something. Make a bed, keep it warm, figure out what and how to feed it.

With this little bird? The best I can do is stay hands off. It is a wild creature. It doesn’t eat food like I do, or drink water like I do. And probably as far as that little baby swallow is concerned, I am scary af.

I put a little cardboard box on its side out there in case it wants something nest like to hide in. (It hasn’t used it yet, it likes the crevasse between the sliding glass door and screen more.) I moved the little box to shade its hiding spot while the sun was being fierce. As I understand it, little swallows don’t regulate their body temperature and I did not want it to get too hot under Texas sun. I put a saucer of water out there. I am not sure the little swallow even knows how to drink water, literature says swallows get their water from insects they eat which seems outrageous but that is what the lit says. The water is there there just in case.

I cannot put the baby swallow back in its nest. I’m not sure which nest it came out of and the nests are in the balcony eves that are at least 12 feet off the ground and way out of my reach. Plus I’m on the third floor, if I even had a ladder that high and climbed to the top of it to put a little bird into a nest that may or may not be the little bird’s nest? If I fell off that ladder and flipped over the balcony railing? I, unlike birds, cannot fly. And it’s three stories down. To concrete. 

That would be very bad.

The best I can do is wait. Put what might appear helpful (and probably isn’t) out there, like a box and saucer of water. And hope the bird parents and little bird work something out to keep the little swallow fed till it can fly well enough it can make it back to the nest – or doesn’t need the nest any more at all.

Cross fingers for me and the little swallow.

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*Mother Nature and I need to have a talk about this swallows raising swallow babies in nests that for a baby swallow is an open air nursery on top of the Empire State Building. 

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*July 31 2026 Update: The little bird made it! Yay!