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Submitted By

Mia, John, Abby, Johny C

Villages Of Bear Creek, TX, USA

Description

As can see from the photos this mockingbird is not in good shape. He gets attacked daily and the adults that attack him dig their claws into him. The poor bird couldn’t defend himself because he was very thin at the time. His feathers were matted and in horrible shape. He has gotten bigger since he has been visiting the peanut butter “swing”.

I also saw an adult mockingbird with no head feathers. It looks like a vulture! This isn’t normal in mockingbirds. (It is normal for blue jays and cardinals to lose their head feathers.) Please help! This is really concerning as there are lots of sick/injured birds in our yard!

Category

Other/Fun

Help! What’s Wrong With This Mockingbird!

Help! He looks terrible! I don't know what to do!

18 responses to “Help! What’s wrong with this mockingbird!”

  1. TEXAS BIRD FAMILY says:

    His head and wing feathers are black! HELP!

  2. Ava Johnson says:

    I searched it up and apparently a mother bird will sometimes attack and kill her baby if it is deformed or sick, but I’m not sure if she would attack a fledgling. I don’t know about the bald Mockingbird, it might have mites or lice. If the young one keeps getting attacked, then you should probably contact the person that you contacted for the Dove.

  3. Texas Bird Family says:

    The mother wasn’t rude to her baby. He wasn’t always like this…

  4. Texas Bird Family says:

    There are so many hurt birds. I saw the hurt sparrow yesterday.

  5. Texas Bird Family says:

    I was looking at recent pictures on eBird and recently lots of Mockingbirds have the same head! so…

  6. Ava Johnson says:

    I think maybe he’s molting. Birds molt in the spring and fall so he might be going through a molt which is why his feathers look so bad.

  7. Texas Bird Family says:

    I think his feathers look bad because he gets attacked a lot by the adult mockingbirds. They attack really badly. They dig their claws into his belly where you can see the marks from it.

  8. Texas Bird Family says:

    I think he is definitely molting! Mockingbirds molt from late summer to early fall. That’s right now! And a bunch of recent photos of eBird of mockingbird look JUST like that

  9. Texas Bird Family says:

    He looks a lot better now.

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