How to tell if a bird is sick, injured, or just resting

The signs that matter most

• It does not fly away when you approach. In a healthy wild bird this alone is enough reason to call.
• Fluffed up like a ball during the day, often with the head drawn into the shoulders. Fluffing conserves heat, and a daytime fluffed bird is usually feverish or failing.
• Eyes closing, half-closed, crusted, swollen or weeping.
• Sitting on the ground for hours in one spot, especially in an exposed place.
• Drooping wing, dragging leg, or standing lopsided.
• Discharge, bubbling or crusting around the nostrils or beak.
• Laboured breathing, an open beak at rest, or a bobbing tail with each breath.
• Dirty, matted feathers around the vent.
• Visible parasites, maggots, or wounds with flies around them — this is an emergency.

Things that look alarming but usually are not

Some perfectly normal behaviour gets reported as illness, and picking up a healthy bird does real harm. Watch from a distance for a few minutes before deciding.

• Sunbathing — a bird lying flat with wings spread and beak open on a hot surface, looking almost dead. It will get up if you approach.
• Dust bathing — thrashing about in dry soil, which looks like a seizure and is not.
• A feathered fledgling hopping on the ground, which is a normal stage of learning to fly.
• Moulting, which leaves ragged or patchy feathers and even bald patches without the bird being ill.
• Panting with an open beak in extreme heat, which is how birds cool down.

In a heatwave

During the hottest weeks, a large share of grounded-bird calls are heat exhaustion and dehydration rather than injury. A bird found collapsed in direct sun should be moved into shade and contained in a ventilated box in a cool room — but still not given water by hand, because a collapsed bird cannot swallow safely. Call a rescuer and say it is a heat case.

Leaving a shallow bowl of clean water in shade on a balcony or terrace, refreshed daily, prevents a meaningful number of these cases in the first place.

What to do once you have decided it needs help

The response is the same regardless of what is wrong with it: contain, darken, quieten, and call. Do not attempt to identify the disease or medicate the bird — several bird illnesses look identical from outside and need a vet to tell apart.

• Place it in a ventilated cardboard box lined with soft cloth and close the lid.
• Keep it somewhere dark, quiet and at normal room temperature.
• Do not give food, water or any medication.
• Wash your hands thoroughly afterwards, and keep the box away from pet birds and poultry.
• Call a bird rescue helpline and describe exactly what you can see.

If you find several sick or dead birds together

A cluster of sick or dead birds in one place is different from a single casualty and should always be reported rather than handled. Do not touch them with bare hands, keep pets and children away, and tell the helpline how many birds and over what area. Groups of affected birds can indicate poisoning or a transmissible disease, and both need the right people involved rather than a well-meaning individual.