Good thing my roses have lice!
January 25, 2018 8:08 AM Subscribe
Man finds teensy eggs, man incubates teensy eggs, man hand-raises teensy bird. Hey, Metafilter! I heard you liked big dudes caring for tiny animals. Get ready for the tiniest animal that needs the mostest care. (It has a happy ending, I promise.)
That must have been sad for him to see his baby leave the nest.
posted by waving at 8:30 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by waving at 8:30 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
Probably it came back a week later with a sack of dirty laundry, a 'friend' to crash on the couch, and a godawful tattoo.
posted by The otter lady at 8:33 AM on January 25, 2018 [48 favorites]
posted by The otter lady at 8:33 AM on January 25, 2018 [48 favorites]
I love this man's videos. His channel is absolutely worth subscribing to, because nearly all his videos are like this. I'm waiting to see more of his new baby emus! I tried to make a post once with his video about saving Pete (another happy ending), but it was already a double.
posted by gladly at 8:35 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by gladly at 8:35 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
It is extremely likely that what he is doing is illegal. In almost all western countries it is against the law to keep wild animals as pets. Egg gathering is also typically illegal because there are compulsive egg collecting people who will wipe out entire populations if not checked by law. In most US states you HAVE to take birds or eggs to a licensed rehab (maybe he is licensed? I see no mention of it.)
Making viral youtube videos of this will only make the problem worse.
posted by srboisvert at 8:43 AM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
Making viral youtube videos of this will only make the problem worse.
posted by srboisvert at 8:43 AM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
I mean, okay, but he isn't keeping it as a pet (he released it into the wild) and the thing would have died without his intervention and he isn't going out gathering eggs so maybe not a dead goat situation here
posted by lazaruslong at 8:48 AM on January 25, 2018 [24 favorites]
posted by lazaruslong at 8:48 AM on January 25, 2018 [24 favorites]
Wow. Life is so . . . . tenuous.
posted by JanetLand at 8:56 AM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 8:56 AM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yeah, no. Cute or not, this really is illegal without a license. Even dead animals contribute to a healthy ecosystem, provided that they stay there. It's good that he released it, but random people without proper training taking animals out of the wild are, on the whole, as likely to do harm as good.
(My partner, who does have the proper training, always cringes when she hears about people trying to feed baby animals. As she always says, you can walk back malnutrition, but you can't walk back aspiration pneumonia...)
posted by tobascodagama at 9:08 AM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
(My partner, who does have the proper training, always cringes when she hears about people trying to feed baby animals. As she always says, you can walk back malnutrition, but you can't walk back aspiration pneumonia...)
posted by tobascodagama at 9:08 AM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
Dead goated on the 6th comment. Impressive.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 9:11 AM on January 25, 2018 [17 favorites]
posted by paper chromatographologist at 9:11 AM on January 25, 2018 [17 favorites]
It does look like this guy has a lot of experience with raising birds from the egg-- his Youtube channel is mostly about the quail he hatched and raised from a supermarket egg. So he's not exactly going in blind.
posted by nonasuch at 9:13 AM on January 25, 2018
posted by nonasuch at 9:13 AM on January 25, 2018
If You Meet Tweety on the Road, Kill Him
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:15 AM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:15 AM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yeah, no. Cute or not, this really is illegal without a license. Even dead animals contribute to a healthy ecosystem, provided that they stay there. It's good that he released it, but random people without proper training taking animals out of the wild are, on the whole, as likely to do harm as good.
Jesus. I mean, yes, you are technically right, I guess? Depending on where this dude lives, maybe illegal? Maybe not? I don't know where he lives?
And sure, dead animals contribute to a healthy ecosystem.
You know what else might contribute to a healthy ecosystem? 3.5 million people on YouTube watching a video showing a human expressing tenderness and affection for animals and the natural world. One missing carcass isn't going to imbalance this guy's street, and there's value in modeling behavior that shows compassion and thoughtfulness for animals on our planet.
If there's suddenly a massive epidemic of people raising and releasing injured / abandoned birds that destabilizes the ecosystem then sure I'll eat a cake with words blah blah. I'm pretty confident that isn't gonna happen, and that just maybe people generally not giving a shit about animals and the environment is a bigger problem that might be chipped away at here.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:15 AM on January 25, 2018 [73 favorites]
Jesus. I mean, yes, you are technically right, I guess? Depending on where this dude lives, maybe illegal? Maybe not? I don't know where he lives?
And sure, dead animals contribute to a healthy ecosystem.
You know what else might contribute to a healthy ecosystem? 3.5 million people on YouTube watching a video showing a human expressing tenderness and affection for animals and the natural world. One missing carcass isn't going to imbalance this guy's street, and there's value in modeling behavior that shows compassion and thoughtfulness for animals on our planet.
If there's suddenly a massive epidemic of people raising and releasing injured / abandoned birds that destabilizes the ecosystem then sure I'll eat a cake with words blah blah. I'm pretty confident that isn't gonna happen, and that just maybe people generally not giving a shit about animals and the environment is a bigger problem that might be chipped away at here.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:15 AM on January 25, 2018 [73 favorites]
For the Dead Goat Receipts: according to his channel, dude is in the Netherlands and has hatched/raised quail, emu and various other fowl. There's a reason he has an incubator just laying around and one of his mates called him when they suspected they'd just destroyed a songbird nest in their shed.
Carry on.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:19 AM on January 25, 2018 [25 favorites]
Carry on.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:19 AM on January 25, 2018 [25 favorites]
Eighty feeding rounds per day, if I'm reading that description right? Impressive.
(Note that elsewhere in his channel you see that he owns a device purpose-built to warm and rotate eggs; whatever's going on here this isn't some rando youtube nub fishing for internet points.)
posted by mhoye at 9:19 AM on January 25, 2018
(Note that elsewhere in his channel you see that he owns a device purpose-built to warm and rotate eggs; whatever's going on here this isn't some rando youtube nub fishing for internet points.)
posted by mhoye at 9:19 AM on January 25, 2018
"Aphids, also known as plant lice and in Britain and the Commonwealth as greenflies, blackflies, or whiteflies (not to be confused with 'jumping plant lice' or true whiteflies), are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea." - Wikipedia
posted by tempestuoso at 9:20 AM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by tempestuoso at 9:20 AM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
I almost noped out when he grabbed the nest without gloves on.
Once, while walking through a parking lot, I saw a bird nest on the pavement. I thought, wow, you never really get to see one up close. I wonder if there's anything in it. I wonder what all it's made of. What do they weigh? Where did it come from. So I picked it up.
It was, it seems, mostly composed of very, very tiny crawling insects, who were waiting for my hand to come along. The feeling of them swarming onto my fingers is something I've never really managed to forget. I am glad that there was a restroom nearby, and that it had hot water and soap in abundance.
I can still feel them, even now.
posted by curiousgene at 9:36 AM on January 25, 2018 [14 favorites]
Once, while walking through a parking lot, I saw a bird nest on the pavement. I thought, wow, you never really get to see one up close. I wonder if there's anything in it. I wonder what all it's made of. What do they weigh? Where did it come from. So I picked it up.
It was, it seems, mostly composed of very, very tiny crawling insects, who were waiting for my hand to come along. The feeling of them swarming onto my fingers is something I've never really managed to forget. I am glad that there was a restroom nearby, and that it had hot water and soap in abundance.
I can still feel them, even now.
posted by curiousgene at 9:36 AM on January 25, 2018 [14 favorites]
My favorite moment is when the grumpy bird face finally emerges. Grumpy birds are tops.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:06 AM on January 25, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:06 AM on January 25, 2018 [13 favorites]
Eighty feeding rounds per day, if I'm reading that description right? Impressive.
I wonder if he cracked up somewhere along the line, off camera. Like new parents. After a couple of weeks of that you don't know your own name.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 10:41 AM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
I wonder if he cracked up somewhere along the line, off camera. Like new parents. After a couple of weeks of that you don't know your own name.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 10:41 AM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
Anyone know what kind of bird it is?
and 3rding the OMGCUTE
posted by ShawnString at 10:54 AM on January 25, 2018
and 3rding the OMGCUTE
posted by ShawnString at 10:54 AM on January 25, 2018
I'm pretty sure it's a wren? They have that sassy disposition, the faint eyebrow you can see as its feathers come in, and general body shape.
posted by Drosera at 11:11 AM on January 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Drosera at 11:11 AM on January 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
Hey, if you like bird incubator stories, I cannot recommend highly enough I'll Trade You an Elk for maybe the greatest bird incubator story of all time. I reread this book every couple years and best part is always the incubator.
posted by lagomorphius at 11:20 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by lagomorphius at 11:20 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
Scheesh, everyone knows you are supposed to eat the mosquitoes first, then regurgitate the mashed up mess into the bird's mouth. Amateur.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:36 AM on January 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by cjorgensen at 11:36 AM on January 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
> Dead goated on the 6th comment. Impressive.
The bird's a racist!
posted by cjorgensen at 11:40 AM on January 25, 2018
The bird's a racist!
posted by cjorgensen at 11:40 AM on January 25, 2018
I really didn't think I'd watch the whole video, but it's, you know, compelling. Birdy! Little wee tiny birdy!
posted by allthinky at 11:45 AM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by allthinky at 11:45 AM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
Dead goated on the 6th comment. Impressive.
You know what else might contribute to a healthy ecosystem? 3.5 million people on YouTube watching a video showing a human expressing tenderness and affection for animals and the natural world.
So the experts who decry this kind of home-raise/wild-release thing are the ones in the wrong? Uh, ok. I think the people from the wildlife rehab circuit are more willing to admit that feeling good things about a tiny bird surviving hand-rearing to a (very early) solitary release into the environment ignores the likelihood that this sweet little fellow didn't have the outdoor habituation required to survive long. I'd feel differently if this guy had knowledge of the species (he doesn't), had contacted a rehabber (he doesn't), had experience with release (unless he's letting emu go in his neighborhood, he doesn't), and so on. But since you don't see a cat snatch this very, very young and solitary bird up during its first night in outdoor temperature torpor, I guess the dead goat's on my face and not yours? I dunno, seems backward.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 11:54 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
You know what else might contribute to a healthy ecosystem? 3.5 million people on YouTube watching a video showing a human expressing tenderness and affection for animals and the natural world.
So the experts who decry this kind of home-raise/wild-release thing are the ones in the wrong? Uh, ok. I think the people from the wildlife rehab circuit are more willing to admit that feeling good things about a tiny bird surviving hand-rearing to a (very early) solitary release into the environment ignores the likelihood that this sweet little fellow didn't have the outdoor habituation required to survive long. I'd feel differently if this guy had knowledge of the species (he doesn't), had contacted a rehabber (he doesn't), had experience with release (unless he's letting emu go in his neighborhood, he doesn't), and so on. But since you don't see a cat snatch this very, very young and solitary bird up during its first night in outdoor temperature torpor, I guess the dead goat's on my face and not yours? I dunno, seems backward.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 11:54 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
But since you don't see a cat snatch this very, very young and solitary bird up during its first night in outdoor temperature torpor, I guess the dead goat's on my face and not yours? I dunno, seems backward.
If 2017 hadn't exhausted my eye rolling muscles beyond repair, I'd be rolling my eyes so hard right now.
posted by slagheap at 12:24 PM on January 25, 2018 [15 favorites]
If 2017 hadn't exhausted my eye rolling muscles beyond repair, I'd be rolling my eyes so hard right now.
posted by slagheap at 12:24 PM on January 25, 2018 [15 favorites]
We used to raise parakeets (budgies). I'd sorta forgotten just how butt-ugly a baby bird can be before it feathers...
posted by jim in austin at 12:33 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 12:33 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's one bird.
"So what are you in for? Murder? Embezzlement? Child porn?"
"Nah, I raised a baby bird from an egg."
posted by cjorgensen at 12:33 PM on January 25, 2018 [11 favorites]
"So what are you in for? Murder? Embezzlement? Child porn?"
"Nah, I raised a baby bird from an egg."
posted by cjorgensen at 12:33 PM on January 25, 2018 [11 favorites]
First, and before furthering any derail: I thought that was a well-done video. I liked its style; it captured me.
I had an internal discussion like this a few years back about zoos. Keeping wild animals in far too small cages and basins is horrible, right?
Yes, yes, it is. I'd go only to the butterfly house if it was just me, really. For several reasons: It's hot in there, even in winter, and I like the colors. There's people in South America switching from more exploitative farming (of people and nature) to raising cocoons for northern hemisphere zoos like ours.
But then I started thinking: What about all the children (of any age) who love zoos? It is very important that they learn about wild animals, and how better to get them to attach emotionally to nature, fauna and flora than by taking them to a zoo? Heck with a bit of luck a few of them will develop an interest and start preserving whatever it takes to keep a random little bit of life further away from extinction (by humans, mostly)?
Yes, trying to amateur saving an ickle bird like that is wrong, but you can learn from mistakes, and you can learn even from misleading videos like that: First, however, comes the emotional attachment.
I figure that's what I liked about this one.
It captured me.
posted by flamewise at 12:39 PM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
I had an internal discussion like this a few years back about zoos. Keeping wild animals in far too small cages and basins is horrible, right?
Yes, yes, it is. I'd go only to the butterfly house if it was just me, really. For several reasons: It's hot in there, even in winter, and I like the colors. There's people in South America switching from more exploitative farming (of people and nature) to raising cocoons for northern hemisphere zoos like ours.
But then I started thinking: What about all the children (of any age) who love zoos? It is very important that they learn about wild animals, and how better to get them to attach emotionally to nature, fauna and flora than by taking them to a zoo? Heck with a bit of luck a few of them will develop an interest and start preserving whatever it takes to keep a random little bit of life further away from extinction (by humans, mostly)?
Yes, trying to amateur saving an ickle bird like that is wrong, but you can learn from mistakes, and you can learn even from misleading videos like that: First, however, comes the emotional attachment.
I figure that's what I liked about this one.
It captured me.
posted by flamewise at 12:39 PM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
A cat or some other (hopefully native) predator probably did eat the fledgling soon after it was released. Because it was a naive bird without any parents looking after it, and therefore an easier catch, maybe some other fledgeling didn't get eaten and got to live one more day towards maturity.
This is how I rationalize parts of the the sea turtle management I've done. Often when a nest we monitor is obviously "past due" for hatching, we dig down to see what's up, and much of the time its developmental or environmental abnormalities that result in baby sea turtles that are weak or damaged, and certainly won't be coming back in 30 years as adult females to lay eggs. But they will be lunch for a crab or fish who otherwise may have caught a stronger, more-able-bodied-but-still-basically-a-swimming-oreo baby sea turtle. And so we release them.
So at the beginning of the video, the nest has been damaged somehow, likely abandoned by the parents, and the eggs would become lunch for ants or a snake. This guy takes it, hatches it, raises it to become a more nutrient dense lunch for someone else. Net similar outcome? I guess if it's also illegal in the Netherlands that opens up another can of worms. I hope after seeing this, people who aren't trained wildlife rehabbers don't start taking in any eggs they find, but if it inspired them to donate to an environmental charity or move a spider outside rather than kill it, then that has to be better than whatever giant moral wrong this guy may have committed by raising this bird.
posted by Drosera at 12:49 PM on January 25, 2018 [10 favorites]
This is how I rationalize parts of the the sea turtle management I've done. Often when a nest we monitor is obviously "past due" for hatching, we dig down to see what's up, and much of the time its developmental or environmental abnormalities that result in baby sea turtles that are weak or damaged, and certainly won't be coming back in 30 years as adult females to lay eggs. But they will be lunch for a crab or fish who otherwise may have caught a stronger, more-able-bodied-but-still-basically-a-swimming-oreo baby sea turtle. And so we release them.
So at the beginning of the video, the nest has been damaged somehow, likely abandoned by the parents, and the eggs would become lunch for ants or a snake. This guy takes it, hatches it, raises it to become a more nutrient dense lunch for someone else. Net similar outcome? I guess if it's also illegal in the Netherlands that opens up another can of worms. I hope after seeing this, people who aren't trained wildlife rehabbers don't start taking in any eggs they find, but if it inspired them to donate to an environmental charity or move a spider outside rather than kill it, then that has to be better than whatever giant moral wrong this guy may have committed by raising this bird.
posted by Drosera at 12:49 PM on January 25, 2018 [10 favorites]
basically-a-swimming-oreo baby sea turtle
I will be using this phrase *forever*, at each and any available opportunity.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 12:56 PM on January 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
I will be using this phrase *forever*, at each and any available opportunity.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 12:56 PM on January 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
Aw, it's so tiny!
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 12:59 PM on January 25, 2018
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 12:59 PM on January 25, 2018
I will be using this phrase *forever*, at each and any available opportunity.
Haha, yay! <3
It's my go-to analogy to help curious beachgoers get sense of the size of baby green and loggerhead sea turtles. Their eggs are ping pong balls, and when they first hatch, they are oreos with flippers.
posted by Drosera at 1:12 PM on January 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
Haha, yay! <3
It's my go-to analogy to help curious beachgoers get sense of the size of baby green and loggerhead sea turtles. Their eggs are ping pong balls, and when they first hatch, they are oreos with flippers.
posted by Drosera at 1:12 PM on January 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
It's HIDEOUS and so cute.
posted by Mavri at 1:24 PM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Mavri at 1:24 PM on January 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'd sorta forgotten just how butt-ugly a baby bird can be before it feathers
A couple of my chickens have a tendency towards rough molts. They're so ugly and so grumpy and they look at you like "DON'T EVEN LOOK AT ME, I'M HIDEOUS!!!"
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:51 PM on January 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
A couple of my chickens have a tendency towards rough molts. They're so ugly and so grumpy and they look at you like "DON'T EVEN LOOK AT ME, I'M HIDEOUS!!!"
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:51 PM on January 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
It's HIDEOUS and so cute.
there's a sweet moment in the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court where one of the characters, who's raising a baby pigeon, responds to someone saying that the baby looks ugly by saying "Everything looks a little ugly at first." That's one of those things that...is truer the longer you think of it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:53 PM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
there's a sweet moment in the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court where one of the characters, who's raising a baby pigeon, responds to someone saying that the baby looks ugly by saying "Everything looks a little ugly at first." That's one of those things that...is truer the longer you think of it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:53 PM on January 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yeah I don't think that's a wren...I think it's a new kind of bird (that I just invented) called a Li'l Peeper.
posted by sexyrobot at 2:12 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by sexyrobot at 2:12 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
Dude doesn't have a pair of tweezers? Seems like that would have made feeding the mosquitos to the hatchling significantly easier.
posted by eviemath at 3:41 PM on January 25, 2018
posted by eviemath at 3:41 PM on January 25, 2018
I can still feel them, even now.
... I'm going to go wash my hands now.
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:15 PM on January 25, 2018
... I'm going to go wash my hands now.
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:15 PM on January 25, 2018
I saw the wren video and was heartwarmed. Then da tube thought perhaps I would be interested in seeing him save a turkey and a swallow and a squirrel and thought maybe something was not quite right.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:34 PM on January 25, 2018
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:34 PM on January 25, 2018
It's one bird.
"So what are you in for? Murder? Embezzlement? Child porn?"
"Nah, I raised a baby bird from an egg."
You belong over there on the group W bench.
posted by koolkat at 2:01 AM on January 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
"So what are you in for? Murder? Embezzlement? Child porn?"
"Nah, I raised a baby bird from an egg."
You belong over there on the group W bench.
posted by koolkat at 2:01 AM on January 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm not comfortable with the gender framing of "big guy cares for little baby animal." My elders growing up valued unnecessary kindness and hated unnecessary (within the constraints of agricultural life) cruelty, and the libraries as a child were filled with autobiographies and novels of this story. It was one of the central religious metaphors of the flavor of Christianity of my childhood. Have gender roles gotten that dysfunctional in the 21st century that this is unusual?
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 5:55 AM on January 26, 2018
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 5:55 AM on January 26, 2018
You belong over there on the group W bench.
At a-lice's restaurant
posted by warriorqueen at 6:05 AM on January 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
At a-lice's restaurant
posted by warriorqueen at 6:05 AM on January 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Dear AskMe: I saved a baby squirrel that fell out of my tree once. Should I self-immolate? If so what’s the most environmentally conscious way to build the pyre?
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:09 AM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:09 AM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
Have gender roles gotten that dysfunctional in the 21st century that this is unusual?
Dunno about the specificity of the 21st C. but generally speaking gender roles are super duper dysfunctional and pmuch always have been, yes.
posted by lazaruslong at 4:25 PM on January 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
Dunno about the specificity of the 21st C. but generally speaking gender roles are super duper dysfunctional and pmuch always have been, yes.
posted by lazaruslong at 4:25 PM on January 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
« Older bourgeois value | Those bones can no longer speak for themselves. Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by The otter lady at 8:29 AM on January 25, 2018 [5 favorites]