Jim the chim

Meet Jim. Jim fell from the sky into the spacious acres of Pieman towers on Friday afternoon. He was in a rather raggedy state, but is now feeding well. As can be seen from the snap above, he managed to hop up on to the top of his old mobile phone box on my desk this morning. Jim is now the official noodlepie blog bird. I'm trying to find out what species he is and what he should be eating.

One of SE Asia's leading bat conservationists came round for lunch yesterday, but he doesn't know what Jim is. Although he did confirm that Jim is not a bat. "He's too young to tell. Ring his neck if stops feeding" was the conservationist's verdict. Mashed up mango, pumpkin, apple, garden fruits and soggy street bread seem to be a hit for now. There are pet shops in town selling bugs for birds, think I'll have to pay one of those a visit in a day two.

Comments

[santos.]

scowly little fella. ring his neck, incinerate, and distinfect, i would imagine, but i hope he does well.

[pieman]

Actually, bat guy is my best mate here. Jim's great though, a real hog. Oh and "chim" in case you're really thick and missed it is Vina for "bird"

[Lei]

Sure it's a good idea to keep him considering we're in bird flu central? :P

[pieman]

I don't do paranoia Lei. I don't have the statistics to hand, but I'm fairly certain every documented case of bird flu involved a dead or rotting chicken carcass or duck's blood. The number of deaths since months ago stands at (I think) less than 50 for the region. I've got more chance of snuffing it by stepping outside my front door, walking ten yards, tripping over and garotting myself on a rusty nail.

[capriR]

I'm no expert about birds but I think this is a young sparrow. He doesn't know how to fly yet, does he?

[josie]

I couldn't resist commenting again. Your new little mascot is one fierce little looker! So cute and fuzzy. I hope he does well too. Feeding him some bugs should put him right.

[pieman]

Could be a sparrow. I'm gonna email the Oriental bird club and see what they say. You're right though, he can't fly, but he hops pretty darn well.

[umami]

Hi little fella, are you a vegetarian? You look like a bird, why did mr pieman think you could be a bat? Take care.

[Christine]

I once had a LBB (little brown bird) that was stranded. I think the food you feed it is fine, but you should try to incorporate some insects. From some sites i've visited, i heard that egg yolk and dog food were also good foods for fledglings.

If you want to help reunite this birdy with its mom, place it in a box outside where you think he might have fallen from and hopefully you'll see his/her parents come by giving it food and helping it out of the box to go home.

What i did was placed the box next to some shrubery and soon after, the little bird hopped out into the bushes and waited for its parents. I don't know what happened to it though....:(. Oh, and the bird that i found was either a house sparrow or house finch.

here's some links to sites that i think that i've visted before:
http://petplace.netscape.com/articles/artshow.asp?artID=3185

http://tinywingsinneed.us/8wildbirdcorner.htm

[Christine]

But it'd be kinda cool to see this little chim (haha, oh man, nevermind), grow up in your blog!

[pieman]

Thanks for the egg yolk tip Christine, gonna try that as the fruit seems to pass through him pretty quickly. I'm loathe to leave him for his folks to find him as there are cats around here and he can't fly. Plus... he's a pretty cool pet.

Rest assured this is the *only* 'chim' you'll ever see on this blog;)

[ecr]

My mom raised a couple youngin's like Jim. Fed them finely ground beef mixed with egg yolk and shaped into "worms" at first, bird feed later. Taught them to fly, too (don't ask). One little guy took off and left home at about 1 yr, the other chose to hang around the backyard, slept inside at night. Drove the cats mad till he died about 6 yrs later.

[pieman]

Thanks for the beef tip. He now has some kind of bugs, look like very smal, slim brown maggots. A friend picked them up for me from a pet shop. Jim likes.

[Lei]

I'm a bit late in replying and just wanted to apologize if I seemed to be spreading paranoia. An epidemiologist by training, I've been keeping an eye on the bird flu situation and agree it is hardly time to flee Vietnam. Enjoy your little chim!