Who Takes Care of Birds with Broken Wings?

The first generation of wildlife rehabbers and their back-yard bird hospitals.

Dr. William W. Arnold had four decades as a successful physician under his belt. More recently, he’d become an avid amateur ornithologist. But he never thought to combine these two skill sets for the benefit of “the large number of maimed birds ever present here in Colorado Springs” until he was approached by a young girl who’d found a nighthawk with a broken wing. As Dr. Arnold remembered it, this “tender-hearted lassie” brought him the bird and tearfully asked, “‘Doctor, can’t you make this bird’s broken wing well just as you do the broken arms of the little boys and girls?’”¹

“Dr. W. W. Arnold with two bird patients and his Hospital for Disabled Wild Birds.”

Inspired by this encounter in 1913, Dr. Arnold plunged headfirst into caring for the injured and orphaned birds of his community. An incredible variety came into his care, ranging from a tiny calliope hummingbird to a golden eagle. He kept most of the birds in a large purpose-built aviary, but some of the carnivorous patients were relegated to a separate cage, like the screech owl brought in by a schoolboy who’d found the bird nearly starving. Under Dr. Arnold’s attentive care, the owl was soon thriving “on a diet of dead birds — the hopeless cases that are brought in too late to be saved.”²

But saving bird lives wasn’t his only goal. Dr. Arnold wanted to transform the relationship between children and wildlife, to raise a generation of bird-loving conservationists. He brought convalescing patients to every YMCA, Boy’s Club, and elementary school in Colorado Springs to illustrate his work, which helped foster “a tremendous interest in bird-life and a burning desire for its protection.”³

Local kids rushed to get involved. As Arnold wrote in 1920, “the task of collecting the unfortunate cripples is gladly assumed by the children of the city and adjacent regions, who bring to the hospital every disabled feathered brother found.” Children apparently loved hanging around his bird hospital and were enthusiastically involved in caring for its patients from the cradle to the grave. When a bird was overcome by its injuries, “there was a little funeral, attended by the children who are the greatest friends of the hospital.”⁴

A profile on Dr. Arnold’s bird hospital, from a 1919 edition of the American Illustrated Magazine.

But Dr. Arnold was clear-eyed about the limits of his work. The injuries he saw in Colorado Springs were repeated in every city and town throughout the country. So he issued a call to action for bird-lovers everywhere: “There should be hundreds of bird hospitals scattered over our beloved land,” he wrote, “for millions of birds perish annually from accidents of different kinds, when a large percentage might be restored to normal condition if afforded care and treatment.” And you didn’t even have to be a doctor to get one started. “It is better, of course, that the conduct of the bird hospital should be in charge of a person familiar with minor surgery, but almost any intelligent boy or girl can quickly become proficient in the adjusting of broken wing- and leg-bones.”⁵

In Dr. Arnold’s day, there were no licensed, professional wildlife rehabilitators. If any birds received life-saving care, it was because of enthusiastic amateurs like Dr. William Arnold.

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Of course, people have always taken in injured or orphaned birds. But these rescued birds usually just ended up as pets — to say nothing of the disabled ducks and geese that were conscripted into service as live hunting decoys.

In 1883, the southern poet Sidney Lanier described what might have been a typical experience when his family decided to take in a mockingbird chick that had fallen from its nest. “We struggled hard against committing the crime – as we had always considered it – of caging a bird,” wrote Lanier. But they couldn’t find its nest, and figured it would be quickly eaten if left alone, so they came to the conclusion that the only way to save the bird’s life was to raise it themselves. They named the young mockingbird Bob and raised him on hard-boiled egg mashed together with potatoes. Bob was their beloved pet for three years, until he was killed by a cat.

But in the early 20th century, bird lovers and early conservationists like Dr. Arnold began to recognize the importance of birds to the economy and to human wellbeing, largely because of their role in controlling insect pests that would otherwise destroy millions of dollars worth of crops. As Dr. Arnold put it, injured birds were rehabilitated so they could resume “their numerous activities in behalf of the welfare and happiness of mankind.”

Anyone setting out to care for wild birds relied on a great deal of trial and error. There were no manuals, nor were there training programs. Like Dr. Arnold, many rehabbers had a background in medicine, which gave them something of a leg up. A certain Dr. A. E. MacGalliard of Granite City, Illinois, for example, was brought a hummingbird that had broken its wing after crashing into a storefront window. MacGalliard fixed the wing up with a toothpick for a splint, and brought the tiny bird to schools to help with their nature study programs before returning it to the wild.⁶

Harriet Myers, the Secretary of the California Audubon Society, put together a “comfortable and commodious ‘bird hospital’” in the garden of her Los Angeles home, where she kept injured birds until they could be released.

But there were many more rehabbers who were armed only with empathy and an elementary knowledge of birds. Mary Salmon, of Tarkio, Missouri, rescued a family of four young robins after their tree was cut down. “I had had very little experience feeding young birds and hardly dared to begin,” she wrote, “but their distressing cries for food, and their large, always open mounts, determined me to try it.” She and her husband made an enclosure out of chicken-wire, where the fledgling birds learned to fly. The Bureau of Biological Survey in Washington, D.C. sent her bands to put on the robins’ legs, which she attached before releasing the birds to the wild. “Having the bands on their legs will enable me to know when they return, if they forget their foster-mother, and behave as wild Robins,” she explained, “and I am intensely interested in following their life history.”⁷

Mary Salmon with her four rescued robins, 1924. After she released the birds, at least one of them would return every day to eat cherries or bread from her hand.

These informal rehabilitators developed a reputation based on their self-appointed status as caretakers for injured and orphaned birds and became the go-to specialist whenever anyone discovered a bird needing assistance. Many of them could relate to Mrs. John Franklin Kyler of Kirkwood, Illinois, who felt it was her “privilege, as the Bird Woman of our little town, to raise quite a number of baby birds.”⁸

Amateur rehabbers shared their experiences and recommendations in magazines like Bird-Lore — and there was scarcely an issue that didn’t feature a story about someone raising orphaned birds or fixing broken wings. But for the most part, these rehabbers were on their own.

And as amateurs, they often made mistakes. In 1924 “Mr. and Mrs. Frank D. Hubbard” of New Haven took in an injured cedar waxwing brought over by a neighborhood kid. They affectionately named the bird “cedar” (no points for creativity there) and built him a cage. A bird-loving doctor friend gave the bird an x-ray, repaired the fracture, and diagnosed him with rickets – apparently the diet they imposed didn’t meet the bird’s needs. Unfortunately, the bird never got the chance to make a full recovery. Cedar was always trying to fly up in its cage with his bandaged wing, and by the Hubbards’ telling, “he tried to get up once too often and fell to his death.”⁹

An x-ray of Cedar, the cedar waxwing. From a 1924 issue of Bird-Lore.

It would take more than fifty years before wildlife rehabilitation graduated into the sort of formalized and professional service that could avoid the lethal mistakes made by the Hubbards. In the aftermath of several disastrous oil spills that killed tens of thousands of seabirds and mobilized public concern for wildlife, the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council was formed in California in 1972. The National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association was organized ten years later. Together, these organizations developed the trainings, certifications, and minimum standards for care that turned a scattering of enthusiastic amateurs into a network of licensed professionals.

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In Washington DC, there’s only one licensed wildlife rehabilitator. And like most rehabbers, City Wildlife relies on volunteers and concerned community members to bring in injured animals. One of their programs, Lights Out DC, helps to document and collect some of the 600 million birds killed by crashing into windows every year, and I wake up early on Tuesday and Thursday mornings during migration season to bike around the tall glass-fronted buildings along the capital’s waterfront and look for casualties. Most of the birds I find are dead, but knowing how many birds are killed at each address helps City Wildlife lobby building owners to install bird-safe glass.

Once in a while, though, I find a live bird. Earlier this fall I turned a corner on my bike and found what looked like an inert football crouched in front of a wine store’s display window. I knew immediately that it was an American Woodcock that had been stunned by flying into a window. The bird was balancing uncertainly on its stubby legs and squinting through half-closed eyelids. I scooped the inebriated creature into a paper bag and pedaled my way home.

Woodcocks often have a hard time recovering from window strikes. The trauma to their brains and eyes, the damage to their fragile bones and beaks can be too much to come back from. But by the time I made it back to my car to shuttle the bird to City Wildlife, the paper bag was rustling anxiously. Every few minutes during my drive, I was startled when the bag leapt a few inches off the ground as the restrained bird tried to take off. This seemed like a good sign.

American Woodcocks have a tough time navigating cities during spring and fall migration. The New York City rehabber Wild Bird Fund put together this map of woodcock window strikes in Manhattan.

Fortunately, this bird was one of the lucky ones. It had a fractured sternum and a cut on its head, but the professionals at City Wildlife were able to help the woodcock through a complete recovery and released it to the wild.

I’m really grateful that there are trained experts dedicated to healing injured birds, and that it’s not up to well-meaning but clueless amateurs like me to save their lives. Professional wildlife rehabilitators follow research-based minimum standards of care which are much more likely to successfully cure an animal, especially if it’s suffering from infections or internal injuries. Following these practices also reduces the risk of passing diseases between people and wild birds.

But I can’t help feeling that this professionalization is just one more way that our relationship with nature has become more distant, less tactile, and outsourced to experts. Which is why I’m so grateful for this chance to volunteer in a way that brings me in contact with wildlife — under the supervision of professional rehabbers, holding all the necessary federal licenses, and abiding by guidelines to protect me and the birds.

I believe that part of being human is connecting with other kinds of life, and one of the tragedies of modernity is that we’ve built up a great wall between Humans and Nature, between Civilized and Wild. We’ve convinced ourselves that we’re so different from and superior to every other being whose heart beats differently than ours. When I pick up an injured animal, struggling for survival in my hands, I’m viscerally reminded that this creature exists purely for itself, and not for me.

1. Arnold, W. “A Bird Hospital.” Audubon. Vol 20, No. 3. United States: National Audubon Society, 1918.

2. Wilder, Charles. “A Good Man for Children to Know.” American Illustrated Magazine. United States: Colver Publishing House, 1919.

3. Arnold, W. “A Bird Hospital.” Audubon. Vol 20, No. 3. United States: National Audubon Society, 1918.

4. Smith, Olive. “A Bird Hospital and its Founder.” Our Dumb Animals. United States: Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals., 1922.

5. Arnold, W. “A Bird Hospital.” Audubon. Vol 20, No. 3. United States: National Audubon Society, 1918.

6. “A Ruby-throated Refuge.” Audubon. Vol 17, no. 6. United States: National Audubon Society, 1915.

7. Salmon, Mary. “My Robins.” Bird-lore. United States: Macmillan Company, 1924.

8. Kyler, Mrs. John Franklin. “Bob the Redhead.” Arbor and Bird Day. United States: Illinois Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1928.

9. “A Cedar Waxwing Patient.” Bird-lore. United States: Macmillan Company, 1924.