Adopted a baby bird... looking for advice...

[leoblob]

It's been very stormy here. After a major wind storm, we found a live baby bird on the ground. Left it there until night time and made the decision to bring him (her?) in since we were about to get deluged with thunderstorms. Figured that every day we could keep him comfortable and alive would be one more day... We knew how low the odds were of him surviving.

When we found him, his wings were little stubs and the back half of him was just skin, no feathers, no fuzz, no nothing. We assumed he's pretty young.

Now it's 4 days later and he's doing quite well. We've been feeding him unflavored organic soy milk, with an occasional mashed-up worm in there. His wings are much larger, and almost his entire body is covered either with fuzz or feathers. He stands up pretty well.

As he gets older, what should we do?

I don't know enough about birds to have any idea what kind he is, and at his age he looks different every day. We have your basic ordinary birds around here, robins, sparrows, etc., so presumably that's what he is.

Any suggestions appreciated...

[rkawakami]

I would say that the best bet would be to take the bird to a local humane society and/or wildlife rescue/rehabilitation center where the staff there are well-equipped to identify the bird and make sure it's fed the proper foods. Depending upon the species and the amount of exposure, the bird may become imprinted on humans during these early days. In other words, it won't know it's a bird when it grows up. That would make it harder to return the bird to the wild when it fledges.

http://www.reddoorshelter.org/wildlife_rescue_info.html
http://www.chicagoaudubon.org/

[leoblob]

He died last night