Susan Simon stepped out of her home in Michigan on a normal but windy day when she noticed something small and pink on her front porch. Her heart sank when she realized what it was.
Susan knew that house finches had built a nest in a wreath on a light fixture and this particular nest couldn’t hold once the wind gusts picked up. The nest fell, knocking a newly hatched finch on the ground. It was miraculously still alive, so Susan placed the nest upright and set the little baby inside.
“We went to town and when we came back the baby was on the ground again — still alive,” Susan told The Dodo. “I took him inside and Googled ‘how to feed a baby bird.’”
Grabbing a Tupperware, Susan lined it with paper towels, placed the baby inside, and set it on a heating pad. Then, using a toothpick, she fed the tiny newborn baby.
“At first he didn’t want to open his mouth — I think he was weak and cold,” she said. “I got him to take some food and then I had to feed him every 15 minutes for the first couple of weeks.”
Although she was hoping for the best, Susan had her doubts about the viability of the little bird after the nest fall.
“I didn’t think I was going to be able to keep him alive,” she added, “but I did.”
Day after day, the little bird kept getting bigger and bigger. Susan would weigh him on a food scale to monitor his weight. And soon? Its eyes finally opened! She said that he looked so funny that she had to name him Twerp.
“When I first found him, he was just a naked little thing with fuzz on his head about as big as my thumb,” Susan said. “Then his little pin feathers started coming in and he looked like a tiny dinosaur.”
It wasn’t long before Twerp graduated to his own cage with a food and water dish. Once his feathers began to grow in, Susan would take the cage out on the porch so he could get used to the sights, sounds, and feel of being outside.
Twerp eventually completely outgrew his cage and began to fly around. Susan started to take him outside in the yard while he would perch on her shoulder.
“I would walk around the yard with him on my shoulder, and he would fly off into a tree,” she explains, “but then he’d come back.”
After a while, Twerp began to spend most of his time outside. When Susan would leave her house, he would often fly over to her and chirp at her for some food. She realized that he was quite dependent on her still. She decided to put out some bird feeders, where other neighborhood birds would show up and demonstrate to Twerp how to eat on his own.
A few weeks passed and Twerp seemed to stop coming back – he had found his bird freedom.
“I was sad when he left,” Susan said, “but kind of happy that he was [back] where he was supposed to be.”
We’re sure that Twerp is out there enjoying his life and if it wasn’t for Susan – who knows what could have happened. Watch a video of Susan and Twerp in action here.
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