MD Osprey:

Late this afternoon we got a call from a neighbor, across the street. It 
seems she put some of those sticky insect traps in her garage to catch 
crickets. She left for a few hours during the afternoon and when she got 
back she saw that a bird had become stuck in the trap. Barbara and I said 
we'd be right over. On the way, we said to each other, "it's probably a 
Carolina Wren." Well, we were only half-right ... it was a Winter Wren! The 
trap was way back in a corner of the garage. I don't know if the neighbor 
left her garage door open when she went or not ... I'll ask her tomorrow.

The poor bird had both legs stuck, it's belly, and one side of it's face. 
That is nasty very a adhesive, for sure. We were able to carefully 
extricate the bird without dislocating any legs and being careful with her 
eye on the stuck side. (We say, "her" since Winter Wrens are so dainty, who 
knows ...)

We used some of that citrus-based non-toxic solvent and cleaned her up as 
best we could (this was not easy, for sure!). Barbara is a believer in the 
power of heat for her curing birds so we put the bird under a lamp and 
placed some water and insect-suet mix in the bottom of the cage (we are 
using one Barbara's small bird transport plexiglass cages).

The bird dried out under the light and is now quite active, sitting on the 
perch and she is making poops ... that's good.

We've put her to bed for the night and we'll see how she is tomorrow. Much 
of her feathers are still matted and she lost a few in the first cleaning. 
We may have to do a second cleaning tomorrow. Naturally, with the cold 
weather, she would need all of her insulating abilities to survive outside.

If anyone has any additional experience in this area, please pass on any 
tips. We'll let you know ...

Phil


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Phil Davis      Davidsonville, Maryland     USA
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