A few years ago, wildlife rescuer Ian Phillips and his daughter, Bella, spotted a clump of brown feathers buried in a bush near their home in London, England. As they got closer, they realized that the clump of feathers was actually a tiny sparrow stuck in the hedge with no way of getting out.
“[S]he’s hurt herself,” Phillips said in a video for The Dodo.
Both of the sparrow’s feet were tightly wrapped in a plastic cord, and one of the bush’s branches had lightly impaled the bird’s skin. Phillips worked to carefully cut away the branches and remove the immobilized bird from the bush.
Phillips and his daughter transported the bird back to their home, where they immediately got to work untangling the plastic cord from around her feet. Bella helped
her dad with the precise, delicate work.
“It’s, like, wrapped around her foot really tightly,” Bella said in a video for The Dodo.
It took 40 minutes for the father-daughter duo to successfully remove the entirety of the plastic cord. They then treated the bird’s wounds with antiseptic cream to help the healing process and prevent infections.
“Obviously, this has been incredibly stressful,” Phillips said. “So [we] put her in a quiet, dark place, [and] let her rest for a couple of hours.”
The bird’s caretakers had no idea how long the sparrow had been in the bush and were worried about her ability to recover. But when she woke up from her nap, Phillips and Bella were relieved to see that she had a hearty appetite and a feisty spirit, which were great signs.
The next day, Phillips decided to set up an indoor flight test to make sure the sparrow would be able to thrive on her own. But the bird had other plans — she escaped her enclosure and started flying all around the house, showing Phillips she didn’t need a test to prove she was ready to go home.
“It took me the best part of half an hour to catch her,” Phillips said in a YouTube video. “Her flight [was] perfect.”
Phillips cupped the healed sparrow in his hands as he went outside to free the bird. He felt her moving around excitedly — a stark difference from the immobilized animal he’d rescued just a day earlier.
“She can hear the other sparrows calling … and she’s desperate to join them,” Phillips said.
As soon as Phillips opened up his hands, the sparrow flew off to join her flock. Before she got too far away, she stopped for a quick rest on a nearby branch, and her rescuers got one last look at the strong, confident bird.
