Quick-thinking Yorkshire students save lives of chiffchaff chicks

Richmond School and Sixth Form College students, sisters Emma,12, and Bethany Farrow, 13, and Imogen Laws, 13, nurtured the tiny chicks for nine days.

They feed them every half hour to keep them alive with food taken from a small paintbrush and using a pipette to place tiny droplets of water onto the tip of their beaks.

Speaking about the release of the three chiffchaffs last week, Bethany, said: "It was a worrying but joyful moment when, after nine days, the chicks were strong enough to be released into the wild.

"We carefully put them in a small box and took them outside. After just a minute they had all hopped out and one of them was already up the top of a massive tree".

She added: "All day, we kept a look out for them expecting them to come back; they came back every now and then and we were able to feed them a little bit".

The trio, who live in the village of Scorton, came across the birds while out on a social-distancing walk when their dogs led them to a pile of feathers and sticks in a nest where there appeared to be some dead birds.

Among them, three were huddled together and moving so they carefully picked them up and lightly blew on them to see if they were alive.

After ringing the RSPB and waiting to see if the chicks’ parents returned, they wrapped them in a coat and took them home where they put them in a box with a towel for warmth.

The girls spent nine days hand-rearing the birds, initially with mushed-up dog biscuits and hard-boiled egg for protein, feeding them off the end of a paintbrush and water from a pipette.

They called them Pumpkin, Rio and Smudge.

The birds had to be fed every half an hour. Sharing the feeding duties, sisters Bethany and Emma got up at 6am to do this every day and until 10:30 at night. Imogen came when she could to help feed them too, while social distancing.

The chicks eventually started recognising where the food came from and happily tweeted when the girls came to get them from the airing cupboard where they were staying to keep warm. They fed them egg biscuit feed, mealworms and waxworms with tweezers.

The pupils also taught them how to perch, creating a training area with branches in the bathtub to learn this skill.

Not long after this, they began to fly between the branches and eventually they started flying onto us as the girls went in to feed them.

Bethany said: “All three chiffchaffs have been seen occasionally coming back to the garden to feed. They are fully independent now and doing nicely!

"We miss them but hope they will be happy and safe".

Jenna Potter, the headteacher at Richmond School and Sixth Form College, added: "Their special and caring act of kindness to save these beautiful birds and devote so many hours of time to hand rear them is tremendous, without which they almost certainly would have perished."

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