I recieved a call from my mother today at lunch. About 7:30 this morning, she found an injured warbler that aparently had a head on collision with a door at St. Michael Church, near the corner of Tiffin and Bigelow Avenues in Findlay. She said the bird was in bad shape and may have two broken wings.
When I saw the bird, my heart sank. It was an immature Connecticut Warbler. Its wings weren't broken, but rather it appeared to have suffered a severe concussion. That it initially survived the hit at all is rather amazing.
The only thing one can do with a bird concussion is to put it in a dark, quiet place and hope for the best, and that's if the head injury isn't too bad. This bird was too far gone and died not long after I saw it.
Migration is a very risky venture for birds. Houses, windows, guide wires, cats, hawks, not to mention hunger and exhaustion all take their toll. It's little wonder that the average mortality in a given year for some of our songbirds can approach 80%.
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