A Broken Wing Heals
A Broken Wing Heals
During banding operations at my Woodacre station on March 1, 1936, a Golden-crowned Sparrow “repeat,” number 34 l6l7l5, managed to snap the humerus of its right wing in trying to escape. A large brush pile is maintained close to where the feed hopper and some of the traps are located, the pile being large enough to form a good hiding place where birds cannot be reached by hawks or stray cats; so the injured bird was gently placed on an inner twig half way up the side of the pile.
On March 15, just two weeks after its accident, this bird reappeared in one of the traps. On being released after its number was read, instead of fluttering back to the brush pile close by, it flew fo a thick-set live oak tree some 40 or 50 feet away, and furthermore it flew upward some 20 feet from the ground. It seemed to fly a trifle more slowly than usual, but its action showed that the bone had knit and that the wing was fulfilling its function. Moral: for ground-feeding birds always have a brush pile handy in case of accidents, where the victim can hop down from twig to twig and feed without straining the injured wing. Fortunately such an accident is of rare occurrence.
Joseph Mailliard
Caifornia Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, April 8, 1936
