Rob the Dunnock

This is a story about a little Dunnock called Rob. Least we think it was a he!

It tells of how we came across him in the garden, his resuscitation, and growth till he fledged and flew away a few weeks later.

It all started with an afternoon walk in the garden on the 20th June 2018.

We have a Leylandii in the garden and birds nest there periodically, and as I walked underneath it I noticed a tiny little black ball of fluff laying on one of the slabs underneath the tree. It was Rob, a chick that could only be a week or so old, looking very much a lost cause and on his last legs. At the time we did not know what sort of bird he was, just small, black with a few pin feathers.

I first thought he had fallen from one of the nests in the tree (there were at least three there!) amongst the branches. I had a quick look in each to see if there were signs of any other chicks, eggs or fresh nest material but they all appeared quite old. I placed him in one of the nests in the hope of his parents was nearby and would find him.

After an hour and a half or so no birds had been near him and he was looking in a bit of a desperate and terminal state. We didn't think he really belonged in any of the nests in the tree as they looked far too old to be in use.

Perhaps what happened is that a Crow, or a Magpie, raided a nest nearby somewhere, stole a chick but then dropped into our garden as it flew back to its own nest to feed its own chicks. I'm not sure you could consider the chick lucky or not.

We tried ringing the RSPB to get some advice but we couldn't get a response.

We decided to have a go at rescuing it, he looked as he was not long for this world and we felt we couldn’t really leave him to just die.