Actually, I know that Private in Saving Private Ryan refers to a military rank, and has nothing to do with public. Moreover, Saving Public Bird doesn’t make any sense in English either, but I still wanted to make this pun.

On May 3rd last year (2023), a heavy rainstorm hit Wuhan. After the rain stopped, I ~(Procyon guizishanensis)~ went out in search of food and found a destroyed Chinese blackbird (Turdus mandarinus) nest under a camphor tree (Camphora officinanum). There were four nestlings; two had fallen onto the road and were already dead, while the other two were still alive, possibly because they fell into the bushes and were cushioned from the impact. When I found them, they were calling from the edge of the bushes.

Although the nest had broken into three pieces, it was still relatively intact and could be pieced back together. I found a plastic bowl from a fruit shop, drilled some holes in the bottom to prevent water buildup, and placed the nest inside to hold it together. The bedding material in the nest had scattered when it fell, so I went to a nearby farm that raised chickens and ducks and asked the owner if I could get some feathers from them. They said ok, but they only had wet ones. I thanked them and declined, opting to line the nest with some cloth instead.

The tree was too tall for me to place the nest back up there, and since I saw the parent birds nearby still watching and even feeding them some “blackbird noodles” (subordo Lumbricina), I placed the nest under the bushes and went home, thinking the parent birds would surely take care of them. I collected the two dead nestlings and brought them home, putting them in the freezer.

But when I checked again at 10 p.m., there were no signs of the parent birds returning, and the nestling fecal sacs hadn’t been cleaned. I consulted my teacher, who said that if the nest was placed on the ground, the parents wouldn’t return. And since the weather forecast predicted more heavy rain that night, I decided to take the two live nestlings home.

Of the two, one was slightly healthier, vocal, active, and begging for food (very noisy too), while the other was weaker. It seemed like one of its legs might have been injured from the fall. This one begged for food less often, and when it did, it couldn’t lift its head properly, and its beak often got stuck in the nesting material.

The next morning (May 4th), I hurried out with the nestlings (they must have been starving by then) and went to a hardware store to buy a ladder and some wire. I asked the owner if I could borrow a ladder if I bought the wire, but he refused, so I had to buy one. This wooden ladder cost me 145 yuan!

Carrying the ladder and nestlings, I headed to the camphor tree, set up the ladder, and climbed up. The ladder was taller than me, and it scared me quite a bit. I used the wire to secure the nest onto a branch, tightened it, and hurried back down, almost falling and becoming roadkill raccoon (since there was a road below).

Afterward, I wandered around the area and saw a blackbird, though I wasn’t sure if it was the parent. I played the begging call I had recorded that morning on my phone and wondered if the parent blackbirds could recognize their own chicks by sound. Would they think I’d squished their kids into a rectangular pancake?

After playing the sound for a bit, another blackbird (I don’t remember the gender of either bird) appeared, carrying a blackbird noodle. I gradually lured it to the tree, but instead of going directly to the nest, it looked around cautiously, still holding the noodle. I wasn’t sure if it was being cautious or if it didn’t recognize the white bowl as its nest. After some time, it finally flew over and fed the noodle to the chicks, then flew to a nearby patch of grass to continue ~making blackbird noodles~ catching worms.

While begging for food in the nest, both chicks stretched their heads out long, and the weaker one probably wouldn’t have trouble getting food. Maybe that chick was smarter and knew I wasn’t a blackbird, so it didn’t beg me for food?

The parent birds were feeding them very frequently; the chicks must have been starving. It might also have been because of the rain that ~blackbird noodle ingredients~ worms were especially abundant.

I began wondering if the clear plastic bowl was too obvious and less hidden. I thought about painting it green but was worried that the paint’s smell might be harmful to the chicks, so I gave up on that idea. Then I left away.

That afternoon, another rainstorm hit. I checked the nest under the tree, and there was no water buildup, so the holes I drilled seemed to be sufficient.

On the 5th and 6th, I went to check again, and the parent birds were still tending to the nest. But by the 7th, they were gone. According to some research I found in Fauna of China, Wu Zhikang and others (1984) recorded that in Guizhou, “six eggs were already found in a nest on April 28th, and by May 3rd, nestlings ready to fledge were collected.” This suggests that the blackbird’s nestling stage lasts about six days. Considering that the two chicks I found had already been developing for some time and were not newly hatched, so 3-4 days to fledge seems like a reasonable timeframe.

I thought about climbing the tree to check. If the parents had abandoned the nest due to disturbance, I might consider taking the chicks home to raise myself. But if the chicks had already fledged, I would remove the nest and take it home for use with a blackbird specimen (from a male blackbird we previously collected).

Then, my ladder was stolen.