My advice on caring for a baby Honeyeater

The following is a detailed and slightly obsessive edit on some advice I’ve given recently to people raising a honey eater from a baby fledgling. It won’t be of interest to anyone who doesn’t have/like birds so I apologise for that but as I found very little information on the internet about raising this tiny bird, I thought I’d post this blog to help anyone else in the situation I was in.

It is a time consuming process but well worth it as he is such a great little bird now who skims my bath every night and then sits on the tap and cleans himself with the water he’s collected. He’s a beautiful and funny guy. Having two birds helps a lot with writing the character of Jock, the parrot in the Cassidy Blair books that I write for Hachette Livre Australia..

I have a 4-year-old cockatiel called Jones at home with me (I am writer so I spend a lot of time alone) and he’s great company, so when some friends (the gorgeous Robin and the spunky Greg) found a honeyeater and brought him over in a shoebox. He was so tiny I assumed he would die that night but I looked up some scant information on the internet, learned they were lactose intolerant (although since then both Charlie and Jones sneak breakfast from me and have suffered no problems so far).

So I bought some baby food and mixed that up and fed with an eyedropper before getting some advice from Dr. Hough’s excellent assistant, Lynette, and buying the Wombaroo honeyeater mix and also the insect mix, which I stirred with warm water twice a day 3:1 ratio, feeding him whenever he cried (every half hour or so). After a while the feeding became second nature but in the beginning I made the mistake of feeding him too much at once and he ended up getting a skin infection from the sweet mixture because it would ooze out his mouth which made his lose a lot of feathers.

This happened twice although obviously I changed my super-sizing. Dr. Hough was a bit unsure how to treat him as he’s so small and apparently no one has honeyeaters as pets, or tries to, so he tried several things including tiny doses of anti-inflammatory and I washed him twice a day (which he hated) with this special mixture (I’ve forgotten the name) that cleaned his skin and reduced the ph balance, I think… anyway, eventually his feathers returned – but it was important for him to have some tiny amounts of skin treatments because it was painful to grow feathers through raw thickened skin. Eventually his advice worked and I highly recommend finding a great vet like Dr Hough if you find a sick bird or any wildlife, as he specialises in this area (there are kangaroos and various saved wild life behind the clinic). Last time I was there it was like a vet in a cartoon, there was a guy with a seagull, a girl with a tree frog and me with my honey eater. I guess they get the odd golden retriever, etc, but I’ve never seen them.

One of the main problems with Charlie’s lack of feathers was that he would get very cold. Luckily we have lots of lamps around and he’s now appropriated two of them, so I put in high wattage globes and even now he sleeps there during the day. The other problem was that he loves bathing, so when he was wet he was basically skin and scraggly feathers. You could see his breastbone clearly through his skin. We tried a variety of things but the best was (uneconomically) leaving the heater lights on in the bathroom, which made a warm, safe spot for him to retreat, which he did often.

Keeping him warm was very important of course but I wanted to give him the freedom to escape if it got too hot, so while lots of people recommended the globe and covered container for these early months I found an open cage in a safe and warm spot, with a cover over the cage so he felt protected but not in the dark, worked best. He also loved being carried in my palm in a soft towel or flannel cloth but practical reasons this became impossible after the first few days when I realise he might actually live so I made up a sling out of a very soft and strong woollen scarf that rested near my heart, but I am lucky to have a marvellow light/heater that warns the bathroom very well and very quickly, so he spent a lot of time there. In fact, If I come home at night and he doesn't come when I call, guaranteed he'll be sitting in the shower behind the shampoo bottle, impossible to see unless you know where to look. I think he grew a real affection for the place he grew well in. He seemed content to sleep there in my sling while I was working for most of the day and I guess the added bonus of heartbeat and body warmth were beneficial (in between feedings – thank goodness they don’t eat at night or this story might not have been quite such a happy one).

Obviously I didn’t take him outside at all during this time and even nowadays he’s more comfortable inside than out in a cage, but that could be because of the local birds taking an interest in him. He was just so tiny for those first few months I feared he would die each day and the lack of information about caring for such a bird is frustratingly thin, so I just kept up with various ideas until something seemed to work. He’s just such a darling bird to have around and his singing is terrific, so I’m very lucky to have made it this far with him.

Charlie quickly grew a much longer tail and wing feathers and we saw that it was likely he was a white plumed honeyeater as he developed white flames of feathers on each side of his head. Anyway, this is indulgent, sorry. I guess what I’m trying to say was that it was touch and go for a long time and I made it up, with some wise advice from Dr. Hough at times, until I even felt confident he would be strong enough to make it through and I finally bought him a bigger cagé (although both birds have the run of the house, so far neither of shown any interest in leaving but possibly they’re not yet grouchy teenagers looking for something more lively).

The things that I learned with Charlie were that like Jones, he loved company, and I was lucky because, being home a lot and spending a lot of time at my computer or on the ground near him, editing, I could keep an eye on him and he felt safe. Now he’s a VERY clingy bird and really doesn’t like being away from people. This doesn’t bother me at all but he loves sitting on our clothes in the wardrobe and this can be annoying sometimes if fresh clothes already have the tiny markings of a long stay by Charlie.

Luckily I have found that a good bristle brush is the easiest way to remove bird droppings from clothes when they’ve dried. He hitchhikes round on our shoulders and in the evenings huddles up under my chin or inside my shirt (you have to be careful) and fluffs up into a tiny pompom and tucks his head away and goes to sleep. He is very trusting and sweet. If I take a nap he sleeps as close as possible, by my mouth where it’s warm, I guess, or poised on my finger. I have no idea how he has any rest doing this but whenever I wake up he’s there. I think he might be spoiled by us somewhat.

I bought a bunch of bird song CD’s because I was feeling bad that he might lose his song, but these just seemed to freak out both birds and they are much happier singing (very loudly) along to lyrical melody type songs like those of The Carpenters, Doris Day, Janet Seidel and so forth. For some reason Jones has a particular appreciation for the seventies and dances with unusual vim and vigour whenever I play the Bee Gees or anything else like that. I guess if I had better taste in music both birds would as well…

The other things are flowers, which I steal from neighbourhood gardens as the plants I’ve bought to attract birds to our yard haven’t matured yet. These he eats completely, especially the following types: Gold Chimes, Grevillea, Kangaroo Paws, Hebe Wiri Joy, Cape Honeysuckle, and one other native I couldn’t identify that has bright orange horn like flowers that come in bunches from a low growing bush and he loves these possibly the most, as the nectar is very sweet.

He also loves cooked rice, soft cooked vegetables like potato and pumpkin, picking the juice out of corn kernels, some sweet baby foods in jars, small pieces of bread, and all types of juice, although I don’t give him much in case it’s just too sweet. Luckily there are a lot of small organic ones available now. I stopped feeding him his favourite juice blackcurrant and apple because, well, the tiny problem of his droppings became a major one when they are bright purple and staining… He’s very partial to peaches, mango, gold kiwi fruit, raisons and chopped dried fruit (tiny pieces) and apples. I’m still trying to break him of the habit of being fed. Obviously he no longer needs the syringe but he doesn’t seem to notice food is there unless I mention it to him and then shove it right up to him or put some on my finger. Sometimes he won't even look unless I wipe the end of his beak with the mixture and then he's all crazy for it. I also get whole heads of corn and slice down each row with a sharp knife so the juice is more accessible and he can drain these guys within days. Dr Anderson, who works with Dr Hough in Mitcham, says that’s because he’s bonded with me and treats me like his mother, so I need to show him what to eat (and what not to eat)

Another thing he does, which is rather gruesome, I have a wooden bird feeder outside and when I move it in the mornings and if it’s wet, there are a few worms there, as well as in the soil, and I occasionally catch them for Charlie. He bangs them against the ground until they’re unconscious and eats them; in fact, he can stuff a lot of food in his mouth, half grapes, raisons, etc. I thought about the worms purely because he once stole some 2-minute noodles from my lunch (being a writer is such a nutritious profession…) and he did the same banging with the noodles.

Pretty much everything I’ve done, aside from the discovery of Wombaroo products and the medical help, has been from trial and error, which is really why I’m writing this rambling and slightly embarrassing post.

I should add that so far Jones and Charlie get along perfectly well. They’re not best friends and they love pulling each other’s feathers at times, but mostly they’re happy to sit side by side, making me feel like Sir Francis of Assisi, on my shoulder or head. Charlie is especially fond of sleeping on the corner of my spectacles. Both birds have a habit of bursting into song whenever the phone rings or a good TV show is on (kind of rare…), but that’s about the only negative I can think of, aside from getting used to cleaning up after them if you let them fly free in your house.

Clearly I’m indulging these animals, but they are very giving, loving, friendly and hilarious companions. Charlie comes whenever I call him and loves tangling himself up in my hair and playing there, which is fun until you try to get him out. Both birds put themselves to bed when they’re had enough. I do make sure I keep them somewhere that’s not draughty and also wrap them in flannel sheets or blankets (with air holes) because I’ve had friends whose birds have died of the cold this winter and after all the time and thought put into keeping these gorgeous birds alive, I’d feel devastated, and very foolish, for neglecting them in this small and obvious way.

I hope this information helps anyone with birds, especially baby birds and fledglings. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Yours, Kirsty