>>The Wildlife Center of Virginia is one of the world's leading teaching and research hospitals for wildlife and conservation medicine.

Each year, the Center provides state-of-the-art veterinary and rehabilitative care for nearly 3000 wild animals with one goal in mind: returning the animal to its natural habitat.

(serious, inspiring music) >>In 2010, the US Census asked people about their pastimes and hobbies.

Some 60 million Americans identified themselves as birdwatchers.

Well, just a short six years later in 2016, a national survey asked the same question.

The number who readily identified themselves as birdwatchers had jumped to 84 million people.

Now, what's a birdwatcher?

That actually includes a broad spectrum of activity, whether it's simply noticing and enjoying a bird as you walk along on your daily routine, having a feeder in your yard, maybe getting a pair of binoculars and going out for a bird walk, or more competitive birdwatching is a possibility because there are indeed national and international birding competitions.

But wherever you fall along that spectrum, birding is a wonderful pastime.

There are some 2000 species of birds in North America, and about 1000 of those are in the United States.

We see about 60% of those bird species, which includes all birds falling into the category that we call passera forms or passerines; they're more commonly known as songbirds.

What makes a songbird a songbird is pretty special, but I'll give you a clue: it has nothing to do with its voice or its vocalization, or its song.

In fact, some songbirds don't sound all that melodious at all.

It has everything to do with their feet.

They have three toes facing forward and one toe facing the rear and it enables them to perch easily on a branch.

And they come in all sizes; they come from tiny little chickadees and small wrens, all the way up to crows and ravens, and if you look at them, all of their feet basically look the same.

There's some other things about songbirds that distinguish them from other groups of birds and one of those is their babies and how they reproduce and how they raise their young.

Songbirds all have what are called altricial young, which means that when the baby comes out of the egg, it's pretty well helpless and it's not fully developed.

It doesn't have feathers or the type of covering that it will have as an adult, it's helpless to feed itself and in most cases can barely even hold its head up.

The parents have to care for that baby in the nest for weeks and sometimes even months before that altricial baby is able to develop enough to leave the nest as a fledgling and then learn to fly from the ground.

Of the 1000 or so species of birds in the United States, 60% are songbirds and many of those are migratory birds, which means they travel a long distance in their annual life cycle to get from nesting grounds, which may be as far north as Canada, all the way to their wintering grounds, which can be in Central and South America.

Now, many of those birds face great risks along the way and that's one of the great reasons we need to be concerned about more than just our own backyard.

When a bird is in our backyard, we appreciate it, we enjoy it, we want to protect it, we have to remember that its backyard is much longer.

We have to be concerned about the nesting grounds in the forests of Canada.

We have to be concerned about the wintering grounds that may be in southern Mexico or Central America and along the way, we need to be sure that those birds have resting and feeding areas in which to stop over on that grueling migratory route.

Well, some of the birds don't migrate at all; they stay around all winter, and like migratory birds, they face threats that are unique to their lifestyle and they're much more vulnerable to the weather; as an example, whether it's snowy, whether it's a warm winter, a wet winter, all of these things influence birds.

But one of the things that can be said about all migratory birds, the threats they face that are causing many species to go into decline are almost always human caused.

Many of the factors that cause songbird species and populations to go into decline are broad scale problems.

Certainly the most serious among these is the loss of habitat; the simple destruction of the forest, the fields, the wetlands, the areas where these birds nest, find food or live out their lives.

And sometimes even if the habitat looks like it is in good shape, a forest as an example, if the habitat diversity within that forest has been compromised, it can seriously affect songbird populations and one of the problems in North America is the overabundance of white-tailed deer in many areas.

Deer are browsers, they eat the leaves and shoots and limbs and in a forested area where the deer population is above and beyond the carrying capacity, you can actually look out through the forest and see that everything from about four feet to the ground is gone in the way of leaves, bushes, shrubs, and habitat for ground nesting birds or low understory birds and when that happens, those birds will go away.

They can cannot live where they do not have a place to nest, raise their young, find food and find clean water.

Not all forested habitat is created equal and many areas where diverse natural forests have been replaced with monocultures, such as pine plantations, it may look beautiful and green, but with really only one species of tree there, if that doesn't happen to be the tree that attracts the particular species of bird that needs a nesting site, they will move on and they will leave that habitat entirely.

Some of the other new emerging issues include wind energy.

While we're all in favor of sustainable energy sources, one of the most popular places to put wind turbines is right on the peak of a mountain where the winds are prevailing and strong.

Well, that same wind that turns the turbine and generates the electricity is the breeze on which migratory birds travel, often thousands of miles, and in the cover of darkness, as that turbine is turning at great speed, it's like a big blender in the sky, and thousands upon thousands of birds are killed each year flying through the fields and lines of wind turbines.

We have to find an answer.

As is the case with most wildlife care facilities across the United States, at the Wildlife Center of Virginia, most of our patients are birds, more than half.

And indeed half of the patients that come in in the avian category are represented by songbirds; up to 90 to 100 species will come in each year.

And they have a wide range of natural history and habitats and diets and we have to be ready for all of them.

As you might expect, the busiest time of the year is the spring nesting season, when there are so many babies being hatched and so many young helpless babies leaving the nest.

Their parents actually teach them to fly from the ground, not from the nest, so when a baby bird leaves the nest the first time and that nest is finished as a factor in its life, he can't fly and he still needs his parents' help.

But many times people come along, find those little birds unable to fly and think they need to be rescued.

So when we get a call, the first thing we need to do is some detective work to find out if that bird needs our help at all.

(phone rings) >>Wildlife Center Virginia.

This is Caroline, how can I help you?

>>There's a baby bird in my yard.

It looks like it fell out of the nest.

I already picked up the baby and I read that my smell might mean the mom won't take care of the baby now.

Should I just bring it into you?

>>That's actually a myth.

Mother birds will not reject their young due to human scent and in fact, many birds don't have a well-developed sense of smell.

But first let's determine if the baby bird is actually a nestling and needs to go back into the nest.

Does the bird have any feathers?

>>It only has a few.

They're still like little quills and there's a lot of bare skin.

>>Okay, that's definitely a nestling and should not be out of the nest yet.

Are you able to see the nest that the bird fell from?.

>>Yes, in a tree right above where we found the bird on the ground and it actually looks like the parents are still here.

There is an adult bird flying around that seems distressed.

>>Great.

So the best thing to do then is to return the baby to the nest so that the parents can continue to care for it.

Can you reach the nest to return the bird?

>>Yeah, we can do that now.

>>Wonderful.

Keep an eye on the nest for a couple of days from a distance to make sure that the parents are tending to it.

If not, give us a call back.

>>Okay, I will.

Thank you.

>>Absolutely.

Let us know if there's anything else we can help you with.

>>I will, goodbye.

>>Bye.

>>When someone calls us about a baby bird that they found, we typically ask a series of questions to determine the health of the baby bird and what life stage it's in.

Uninjured nestling birds can be reunited with their parents by gently placing them back into the nest.

Fledglings that are healthy but have already left the nest should be left on the ground while their parents continue to feed them for sometimes more than a week.

It's always best to let parent birds raise their young whenever possible.

We want to be sure to prevent unintentional kidnapping of young birds.

>>Parent birds do the best job of raising their young, but if a nestling or fledgling is injured or is truly orphaned, we do the best job that we can to care for them and raise them to release.

Baby songbird season generally starts in Virginia in mid-April, with the arrival of some common backyard birds; house finches and Carolina wrens.

The peak of baby bird season runs from May to August, when we admit hundreds of nestling and fledglings.

Our most common songbird specie admit is the American robin and last summer, we admitted over 50.

American goldfinches are the last nesting songbird here in Virginia and we receive fledglings as late as September.

Caring for healthy baby birds is very labor-intensive.

Adult songbirds feed their young around the clock and so we try to mimic that in captivity.

The smallest nestlings require hand feedings every 15 minutes.

Our summer wildlife rehabilitation externs, mostly undergraduate students studying biology or wildlife conservation, take four hour shifts in what we've affectionately termed bird jail because as soon as they finish one round of feedings, it's time to move on to the next.

Most young songbirds are insectivores, meaning they eat insects.

To replicate their diet in captivity, we feed them a variety of commercially available insects, including crickets and meal worms; however, we're not able to offer them the same diversity of insects as their parents would offer them.

We supplement the insects with a specialized bird formula; a formula for nestling songbirds.

This formula is made from high quality kitten kibble, mixed with bird vitamins and minerals.

Proper nutrition is critical for baby songbirds because they grow so quickly.

Nestling songbirds are housed in incubators because they lack the feathers necessary for thermoregulation.

Incubators simulate the temperature and humidity that an adult songbird would provide through brooding.

Brooding is a process where an adult songbird sits on a nest or an egg to keep it warm.

When songbirds are fully feathered and have fledged the nest, we move them to a soft sided reptarium on a heating pad.

Reptariums are generally used to house reptiles such as iguanas and lizards, but they work really well for songbirds because of the soft sides that help protect their delicate feathers.

As young songbirds grow, we decrease the frequency of their feedings.

Fledgling songbirds are fed every 30 to 45 minutes.

Juvenile songbirds are fed every hour, are acclimated to the outdoors, and are moved to our outside aviary.

Out in the aviary, they're exposed to natural weather conditions, the night sky, and are able to practice flying.

Being exposed to the night sky is really important for nocturnal migrants such as the American robin.

As with all orphaned wildlife, raising young songbirds together is critical for avoiding habituation to humans.

Ideally, we would combine two individuals of the same specie; however, that's not always possible if we only have a singlet of that specie.

We can combine singlets of different species if they have similar flocking and dietary behaviors.

Housing young songbirds has other benefits as well, as some older fledglings will feed one another.

Juvenile songbirds are ready for release when they're completely self-feeding, flying well and avoiding humans.

Juvenile songbirds are released together in the groups that they were raised in.

>>While we get a lot of young birds that come in from injuries they sustained from falling from the nest or being orphaned, we also get a lot of adults, and many of them come in with trauma or other serious disabilities.

Now certainly some are hit by cars, we get some that are poisoned with pesticides when homeowners are fertilizing their lawn, not realizing that that grass food also has pesticides and insecticides in it.

We get birds that strike windows and sustain head injuries or other types of trauma.

Occasionally, they get entangled in garden netting.

But certainly one of the most controversial and most deadly causes of trauma to the birds that come into our hospital is cat attack.

Now the debate over outdoor cats rages nationwide, pitting cat lovers and advocates on one side, who believe that the outdoor cat is part of nature and deserves to go free and carry out its instinct wherever and however it chooses.

On the other end are the bird and wildlife lovers that see that cat as an alien factor in the environment, as a domestic animal that has no place roaming freely and preying upon truly wild species.

Scientists have determined that we have somewhere between 20 and 120 million cats in the United States.

Certainly that's a broad range and we really don't know for sure, but the number that most people seem to accept is 60 million cats.

Researchers tell us that the impact of cats on songbirds ranges between a mortality of 1.4 billion up to 3.7 billion.

Now, that's a broad range, but even at the low point, 1.4 billion songbirds killed by outdoor cats every year in the United States is an astonishing figure.

Here at the Wildlife Center of Virginia, between 2000 and 2011, we admitted 9777 songbirds.

That represented 92 species.

Now, of that total group of 92 species of songbirds, 68 of those species fell into the group that had been cat victims.

Now, certainly not every one of every species, but some of 68 species came in having had some type of an interaction with cats and what we found is that any interaction with a cat, whether it was a full blown attack, or the cat simply batting it around a little bit, presents a very big risk.

80.8% of the birds that came in having had any confirmed interaction with a cat died as a result of that interaction.

Now sometimes it was through bite wounds and claw marks.

Other times we could couldn't even find a place where the skin was broken, but because of the infectious bacteria in a cat's mouth and on its claws, the fatality rate is more than four out of five birds, and that is in a hospital with the benefit of medical care and antibiotics.

So if your cat brings you a bird, and you simply turn it loose and it flies away, you really haven't rescued it; its chances of survival are almost zero, and here at the Wildlife Center, that makes a cat attack an emergency situation.

(phone rings) >>Wildlife Center of Virginia, this is Caroline, how can I help you?

>>My cat brought in a bird and now it's flying around inside my house.

>>Okay, and where are you located, Ma'am?

>>I'm in Charlottesville.

Can I just open the windows and flush it out?

>>If the bird was uninjured, that would be fine.

Since the bird was brought in by your cat, I'm pretty concerned about the high possibility of small minor wounds that could develop serious infections.

Because of the bacteria that cats carry, a wildlife is unlikely to survive without veterinary care following a cat attack.

If the bird can be rescued and brought in for treatment that would be best.

>>How am I supposed to rescue it?

>>Do you have a large net or a pillowcase?

>>I have a big butterfly net.

>>Okay, so can you close the doors until you have the bird confined in a small space, then gently catch it within that.

Once you have it secured in a container, you can bring it here to the Center and our vet staff will evaluate it for any injuries.

>>Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can get it.

>>Great.

Just give us a call if you need any more help.

>>Many people might think if a bird doesn't have obvious injuries, it doesn't need treatment; however, any animal that's interacted with a cat likely needs medical attention.

Cats have very sharp teeth and claws that easily puncture thin bird skin.

Those teeth and claws can create wounds and see them with bacteria.

Although the wound might not look significant, that bacterial infection alone can be enough to make a bird become septic and even die.

Songbirds that have been caught by cats often have very severe injuries.

We see puncture wounds, lacerations, fractured, punctured air sacs, missing feathers, and even sometimes missing limbs.

When it comes to treating a bird that's been caught by a cat we need to consider many factors.

Often we're treating open wounds that are contaminated with bacteria or debris.

Bird skin is incredibly thin, so the wounds often involve deeper structures like muscle and bone.

Sometimes we need to do surgery to debride or even close those wounds.

Fractures can sometimes be repaired with things like splints.

Since patients are often very tiny, we have to get really creative when we're making splints.

I often use things like cardboard or paper clips, to fashion something custom for that patient.

When a songbird gets caught by a cat we always give antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medication.

No matter the cause of the injury, whether it's a cat attack, window strike, hit by vehicle, one of our biggest concerns with songbirds is the bird's stress.

Birds that have been caught by a cat are already under quite a lot of stress from attack, capture, transportation, and then they come to our Center where they're subject to a stressful physical exam.

Depending on the level of stress of the patient, we might have to examine the bird in stages, so giving them multiple breaks to rest and recover between handling.

When I'm examining a songbird, I feel the wings and the legs to look for fractures and then I also always part all the feathers to visualize the skin to look for any wounds or bruising.

Often I'll find matted or bloody feathers over top of wounds, hiding the wounds.

And I always, always, always also use my stethoscope to listen to the bird's lungs, air sac and heart.

It's always a very challenging physical exam due to the very small size of the patient and due to the fact that the birds get exceptionally stressed when they're in hand.

So about 80% of the birds that are caught by cats presented to the Wildlife Center die or are euthanized due to their injuries.

That's a pretty high number of mortality, and a pretty high rate of mortality.

It's important to keep in mind also that only a small fraction of the birds that are caught by cats all over America make it to the Wildlife Center of Virginia and that means that free roaming outdoor cats are killing a large number of birds in America each year.

Keeping your cat indoors or allowing them access to outdoor on a leash or inside a catio is a very powerful and effective way to help wildlife.

>>At the Wildlife Center of Virginia, we receive dozens of calls every year about window strikes or birds colliding with windows.

This is particularly common during nesting and migration seasons and unfortunately, songbirds are especially vulnerable.

There are a couple of reasons that songbirds fly into windows.

The most common is that they simply don't see the obstacle and they believe they can fly straight through it.

The other reason is that sometimes territorial birds see their reflection in the window and they're trying to be aggressive towards the reflection in the window.

Commercially available adhesive products can be applied to the window to help make a visual barrier for the birds, but often with territorial individuals, the only way to deter that behavior is to actually block the window from the outside.

Sometimes birds that have collided with windows can seemingly recover and even fly away on their own, but often these birds have internal injuries that we can't identify from a simple visual exam.

So any bird that's experienced a collision with a window or any object should be admitted to a wildlife rehabilitator for an exam.

>>If a bird hits a window, we recommend bringing them to the Wildlife Center right away.

Birds often hit windows because they can't see them.

So if you can imagine, they're flying full speed into a solid object.

This can cause a lot of trauma.

Sometimes the trauma's obvious like a broken wing or a swollen eye, but they can also have internal trauma and internal bleeding that finders might not appreciate on first glance.

Little bones on their inside, like their coracoid or their clavicle might be broken.

These bones are small, but really, really important for flight as they're part of the important shoulder joints.

Even if they look okay on the outside, it's important that they come to us so we can provide them with anti-inflammatory medication and take X-rays to look for any internal trauma.

Sometimes they don't have serious injuries and they're lucky, but we still like to see them here, keep them for a few days on pain medication, monitor them and then release them.

Though less frequently seen, we also admit songbirds that are stuck to glue traps.

Typically we see a few cases each year.

These are especially upsetting cases to see.

The problem with glue traps is that they're completely indiscriminate.

Oftentimes, songbirds get caught to those glue traps looking for other prey items that are stuck to glue traps; usually bugs.

When they get caught, we have to remove them from the glue traps slowly and carefully so we don't cause further injury.

This is obviously extremely stressful for the patient and they can get wounds, loose feathers, and even break bones when stuck to glue traps and when being removed from glue traps.

We use mineral oil to remove them from the adhesive; however, this heavily contaminates their feathers, and without clean feathers they can't keep themselves warm or dry, so after being removed, they're subject to a series of stressful oil baths, to remove adhesive and any residual oil from their feathers.

>>There are many things that you can do to make your home and your personal environment more bird friendly, and you can start by creating a bird friendly yard, provide habitat for birds, and of course, the critical areas of habitat include food, water, shelter, and a place to raise their young.

Now food, that can come in many forms; you can plant bird friendly foods like flowers, sunflower seeds; a perfect example that attract many varieties of birds.

You can put out a feeder using different types of food to attract different species of songbirds to your feeder.

Whatever you do, be sure to read up and be sure the food you're providing is appropriate.

Don't use bread or crackers or table scraps like that, but fruit for the fruit eating songbirds, seeds, crushed corn, things of this nature, can really attract a diversity of avian species to your yard and provide them a little boost.

Water can come in the form of a water feature in your yard or even just a bird bath, or simply a pie pan full of water positioned someplace that birds can readily access it.

And above all, keep it clean.

Remember that when birds come and stand in it or walk in it, their feet are no cleaner than ours would be and you wouldn't think about drinking out of a glass of water somebody had had their feet in.

Now, another thing you certainly can do is to keep your cats indoors, or if you want to take your cat outdoors, supervise it or take it on a leash.

Cats readily will walk on a leash and as surprising as that is to many people, there are thousands of folks who have become really tried and true cat walkers.

There are also new devices that people are embracing now called catteries.

It's sort of a catio, as another term.

People build a patio that's completely enclosed or screened in, the cat can enjoy being outside without actually being exposed to the threats the outside environment presents to the cat, and that the cat presents to birds.

And above all, be sure to give the gift of birds.

Now what do I mean by that?

Well, for yourself, a bird guide is a good way to start.

This one I've been using for 45 years, the famous Peterson guide that was created by probably the most famous birder since John James Audubon, Roger Tori Peterson, and it's a common and a very well-used type of birding guide that's just full of pictures and information about birds.

The National Wildlife Federation has an excellent one, the Audubon Society; there's so many out there.

Find one specific to your region and get yourself a copy, or if you're looking for that gift for a family member or friend, somebody who has everything, get 'em a birding guide and especially if that person's in your house, because you can use it too.

If you'd like to give a gift for the person that has everything; a bird feeder, and perhaps binoculars for children who have an interest in nature.

A pair of eight by 50 binoculars can cost a couple hundred bucks, but they will last a lifetime if they're cared for.

And children who learn to love, enjoy and observe nature will live a longer and happier life in the natural world.

But above all, simply pay attention.

The birds around you add color, add sound, add song to our environment, and they make this world a lot happier place in which to live.

(uplifting music)