Little Miss Diva

If you follow our Facebook page you likely will have seen a post or two about Beyoncé, our first wild bird arrival of the year. Beyoncé came to us after we were contacted by a lady who had found her fallen from a nest high-up in the roof of a building. 

We originally thought that she was a blackbird, as this is what the lady said was nesting there, however once Beyoncé started cheeping away it became apparent she was in-fact a starling. Starlings are also a medium-sized songbird and can look black in some light. When seen clearly however they actually have a much more striking plumage than blackbirds, shining all sorts of green, blue, silver, purple and brown.

The day she arrived - baby birds aren’t exactly the cutest creatures...

Gaining fluff by the hour - no wonder with all that food!

As with all new bird arrivals, we don't like to get our hopes up about their survival. It's not that we're pessimistic, just that unfortunately between the risk of internal injuries, stress and malnutrition the first few days are incredibly hit-or-miss.

After the first few nights we usually begin to relax and can enjoy the process more. Beyoncé was actually originally named Brendon as we like to use names beginning with the same letter as the species they are, but once this little cutie began to sing away Beyoncé was suggested and just stuck. We kept with the 'B' also in honour of Stuart the blackbird, our first wild bird, who was named when we thought he was a starling. Full circle right?!

You can see she’s really developed some feathers now, still pretty scruffy looking though.

Beyoncé has just been upgraded into a larger cage where she has plenty of perches to hop around and roost on. She is still being fed multiple times throughout the day and comes up to the door of the cage squawking when she's hungry. Hopefully she'll begin to show a bit more interest in getting her own food now too, but that's a work in progress. Last time a mealworm was placed in front of her she just stood gaping and screaming at it, as if it would just hop up into her mouth. Like I said, a work in progress! 

Her current state - nicely feathered and happy to be perching. She looks so grown-up!

We will continue to share updates on Beyoncé over on Facebook, so head over there to see more! 

Thank you for reading, until next time, cheerio :)