Is there anything I can do for this poor injured pigeon?

Doram

It has been hanging in my garden for three days now. It can walk, but can’t fly. It can barely manage to fly to a picnic table’s bench, then to the table itself, but then when it tried to fly over the fence it can’t get passed (not that it would do any good to get to the neighbour’s garden).

For the first two days it had a companion pigeon looking our for it on the fence or from a tree, but now the other pigeon is gone.

From the first day I put out some water with a little sugar and a pinch of salt, breadcrumbs and broken nuts, but I don’t think it had any of it. It is probably terrified, and I don’t want to go too close and scare it even more. I fear that it will die of weakness (if one of the neighbourhood cats won’t find it before that happens). It is a sad sight. Is there anything easy I can do to help? Is there a chance for it to recover and be able to fly in the near future if I just leave it alone?

dfk41

Doram It looks like a young one from this years nest. To be quite honest, there is nothing you can really do. To try and catch it to move it from the ground would possibly cause it to stress out. If it wants to eat, best try to find a little corn or wheat/barley, that sort of thing. Unfortunately it will only survive until the first cat finds it. Hard to interfere with nature but it is there for a reason. It had to arrive where it is in your garden. It looks too mature to have fallen from a nest. Sorry I cannot be more helpful than that matey

LMSC

Doram While approaching him/her to examine would terrify the bird, it is also worth checking if the bird has anything stuck on its wing, legs, …

The reason I ask is:

Recently, we saw a beautiful bird struggling on our drive way, when we tried to pull in. We managed to catch the frightened bird gently after struggling to catch initially and unwrapped a plastic the bird managed to wrap itself on its leg and neck. We spread some seeds and kept a bit of water on a bowl. He / she saw us, moved hesitatingly to the seeds and water. Took a few of them and happily flew!

Doram

dfk41 Thanks mate. I tried to give it some barley after reading your messge, but I think I might be scaring it just by going out. I left it outside in case it will be brave enough.

I thought there might be nothing I can do, but posted the question in case there is something obvious that I am missing. I am far from being knowlledgable on wildlife.

Cuprajake

pie….

Doram

-Mac Do you know they’re on the UK vermin list?

I did not, but does this matter?

Cuprajake pie….

I assume this was a joke, but it is interesting the difference in the emotional reaction to an injured creature in the garden and a dead one in the supermarket. It is probably irrational, but we are not rational creatures, are we?

Update from yesterday: I didn’t take the bird in or put it in a box. I did call a few animal charities and it seems no one really cares or wants to take in a pigeon. My daughter’s boyfriend, who is studying to be a doctor, volunteered to catch the bird if needed, but also said if it’s not eating it probably means it is going to die anyway no matter what I do. So left it for the night…

… and this morning I can’t see it in the garden. No sighs of what happened or where it has gone. It may be dead and I will find it later, or eaten by a cat who left no sign, or crawled/managed to fly to a neighbour’s garden, or miraculously recovered and flew off (probably not, but who knows?).

Doram

LMSC I didn’t hold it, but got quite close and I don’t think it caught anything. there are a couple of feathers in the garden, so I assume it narrowly escaped a cat.

DavecUK

Go grab it and inspect the wing for damage, or blood. If it looks broadly OK, place in a box (open top, carry it to your garden shed and leave it water and food. Hopefully it will be safe from cats and can heal. Or place it in a utility room/garage if you have one.

Doram

DavecUK I didn’t see blood, but I think there is wing damage. Other than that, when it is walking it looks ok (as far as I can see). When I approach it runs away, so I would really have to frighten it to catch, and I not keen on that. It’s a job for my son (fantastic with animals) but he isn’t around unfortunately.

LMSC

Doram I do think a physical examination is required. You may need an additional pair of hands, perhaps a net (widely and loosely woven ideally) or a thin sheet (not plastic) to catch the bird and go from there. I would do what Dave recommended.

DavecUK

Doram It’s more frightening, and probably terminal to be munched on by a cat.

Platypus

Ensuring it’s not a youngster new from the nest ,in which case the mother would be watching it and it’s best left alone, then the ideal outcome would be to take it to a wild animal rescue hospital. We are very fortunate where we live and have one in the county that is open 24/7 for all injured and sick wild animals and birds.
Pigeons do suffer with “canker”, a horrid disease that causes weakness, apathy and difficulty taking fluids and food.

-Mac

Do you know they’re on the UK vermin list?

dfk41

-Mac Because. they can destroy cereal crops matey. Their numbers have to be controlled. At one time you never saw a Magpie in an urban place. Now every second bird is a Magpie and they’re are particularly brutally tal in their hunting down and killing nests and young of song birds. You can have Magpies or thrushes, blackbirds and the like but the two cannot dwell alongside each other.

Cuprajake

Yes it was a joke, but they are a pest

We had a family of pigeons decide to nest in our shutter at work and destroyed the mechanism.

So no sympathy from me flying rats.

And I’m not a meat eater.

Elcarajillo

AFAIK Up until recently it was open season on pigeons at any time off year ( destructive pests)

Because the government ‘ forgot’ to renew a statutory piece of legislation , it lapsed and you are not now allowed to shoot pigeons ‘ unless they are damaging your crops’.

They breed like rats , hence the epidemic of them now without any controls on them.

One other item is that their defecations carry very unpleasant disease. I am aware of two roofing contractors who have been in hospital for a considerable time due to infection picked up from P s–t and it affected their heart.

As @ dfk 41 said Magpies are another pest that needs controling.