With one glance upward, my parents and I knew this would be impossible. We could see no sign of the nest or parents. Ronda DeVold of Wildlife Rehabilitation Network recommends creating a makeshift nest from a plastic bowl and placing it back in the tree. There it will be safe from earthbound predators and the parents can continue to feed and care for it. We could have nailed it to the side of the trunk, but this idea didn't occur to us that afternoon in July 1980.
Most birds have a relatively poor sense of smell, about the same as humans.
The old wives' tale, that they can detect human odour and reject a baby you have handled, is simply wrong, but they will get spooked if you hang around, DeVold asserts. The baby was already too weak to lift its head, make a sound or attract any attention. Apparently it had already lain neglected for several hours before we discovered it. We decided to try feeding it. Not knowing what kind of bird it was, we had could only guess at its diet.