Our girls spotted this White-breasted Robin in a beautiful, compact nest, wedged in the bow of a small scrub in our front yard. It was a cold, wet, windy afternoon and as they looked on, there were no parents to be seen!

We observed for quite a while, and then decided the bird must have been abandoned. It was fully feathered, an infant not a newly hatched chick, but it appeared to be weak and unable to fly. As it grew dark, we decided to take the bird and the nest inside out of the cold in the hope that it would feed, with a view to releasing it back into the wild.

We found a safe place for the nest near the fire, Mia named him ‘Jasper’, and we went about researching native bird food. After several combinations, we found that ‘soggy dog biscuits’ worked a treat fed via an eye dropper! Two hourly feeds were recommended . . . . ha . . . he was ravenous and fed constantly for several hours! As our bedtime loomed, we were pleased that Jasper seemed much more lively than when we’d found him. He sat happily in his nest making no attempt to fly.

The next morning we were all woken by Jasper’s excited tweets as he flitted around the lounge room!!! In contrast to the day before, the morning brought clear skies and sunshine. Jasper was on the move and our next stage of research began. The feeding frenzy recommenced, and we were delighted to see that he was well on the road to recovery!

While Brian and I farewelled some guests, Asha & Mia noticed that there were several adult White-breasted Robin’s doing frantic ‘fly-bys’ at the back screen door and at the lounge room windows. Ahhh . . . . Jasper’s family were looking for him!!!

White-breasted Robin’s are cooperative breeders . . . so we learnt, and breeding pairs are often assisted by one or more ‘helper’ birds who help raise their young. We took Jasper and his nest back out to the position in which we’d found it, re wedged it into the bow of the shrub . . . repositioned Jasper . . . . and the family returned immediately! We’d collected a handful of worms which we laid on a nearby log . . . these were snapped up by Jaspers carers and shared with him.

A week later and Jasper is in full flight . . . looking very happy in his natural surroundings. So . . . next time we find a native bird we’ll wait a little longer to ‘rescue’ . . . another lesson in animal husbandry!