So glad they are doing fine. I read somewhere that the human scent thing is a myth. You can pick them up if they fall from the nest.

Almost 30 years ago we lived in a two story house and the swallows built their nests just beneath the eaves. Well, one of the babies fell out, to the ground, and my son, then 9, found it and asked how we could save it. I told him that I didn't think it woule live and the human scent...yada yada, but we would put some soft grass in a shoebox and keep it in the house for the night (thinking that it would not make it through the night). The next a.m. the little critter was still alive so I took a strawberry basket and lined it with grass and placed the 'nest' in a pineapple guava tree close by, not much later, the bird fell out of this nest and I picked him up and put him back in again...al the while thinking how useless this was. End of the story being that the Mama and Papa birds found the baby in his strawberry basket, fed and raised him and he flew away....lol.. My son was right and I was wrong......

It is a myth, lgteacher. Not only can they not smell, they can't taste, either. Which is why I feed my songbirds Safflower seed. It is very bitter. The birds love it and the squirrels won't eat it :-)

Patty S.

I just read that as well, that it's a myth the mother abandons the babies if there is a human scent.

However, I think some birds have an extremely acute sense of smell. Vultures and road kill, for example.

I love Hummers. The babies you saved will be eating mosquitos and tiny flies in your garden soon, returning the favor you did for them. They don't just eat nectar. Lovely photos, thanks for sharing them!

Here is a link that might be useful: do birds have a sense of smell?

Fledglings make a mess out of things, don't they? Kestrels once nested next door, and the babies climbed out of the nest a week before they could fly. It was a nightmare trying to keep all of the neighborhood cats from eating them. We resorted to catching them at night and putting them into a shoebox in the closet until morning, then putting them back out for the parents to feed during the day. They made it, though. Disgusting little things, covered with bird poop. Mean too.
Renee

vultures can not only smell dead critters, they can projectile vomit over quite a distance and very accurately. best to stay far away from them.

a hummer successfully raised her kids almost in the open in a short potted tree at a nursery near here and she didn't seem to mind all the people peering at her day after day. maybe all her visitors relieved the monotony of sitting on the eggs. min

Well, I think it must take special people to rescue mean, poop-covered birds...lol...wonder if kestrels are usually raised under those conditions.

Interesting, hoovb. So, maybe certain bird species have more developed or specialized senses of smell, then. I have always been told not to worry about touching a baby bird and putting it back in the next, as the birds just can't smell you. Maybe the can, but it doesn't scare them? I do know they don't have salivary glands like mammals, and can't taste "bitter", like a squirrel can, so that's why safflower seeds are so successful for me.

Patty S.

Turkey vultures have an acute sense of smell. California Condors don't. They find their food by sight. I think the black vulture also has a good sense of smell.

Most birds have poor senses of smell and some have none at all like the Great Horned Owl. They'll eat skunks. Sometimes if you smell a skunk it might not be a skunk at all, it just might be a GHO.

thanks for the info, patty. i am going to invest in safflower seeds instead of sunflower seeds.

so, dis, if i smell a skunk up in a tree it is probably not a skunk. duly noted.

renee, i'd be pretty mean too if i was covered in poop and taken from my bed and put in a closet every night. min