Please Get Well Mrs. Downy Woodpecker

This afternoon I have a female downy woodpecker ensconced in a tiny cage sitting on top of my clothes dryer.  She is in recovery, hopefully, from a serious smash into a window high atop our church.  The jury is still out as to the extent of her injuries and whether or not she will recover.

During coffee hour after this morning's service one of our children ran in from outside to get my husband.  Off they went to investigate "an accident".  My husband returned to the church hall cradling a soft feathery wounded bird in his hands.  It was my beloved Mrs. Downy Woodpecker.  She was unconscious, head buried beneath her wings and breathing the heavy breaths of a creature in shock.

Occasionally a bird will collide with that window because it so perfectly reflects the large trees across the street, but it is a rare occurrence. Birds who hit that window fall onto an overhang and are easy to spot.

I admit I burst into tears when I saw my dear little Mrs. Downy Woodpecker in such a condition.  What to do.........

My husband held her cupped in his hands for a good half hour before she began to stir.  Then we got a small cage set up on the dryer with some soft toques set between the bird and the metal dryer top.  A minute after laying her on the toques she regained consciousness sufficiently to fly up to the mesh and gain a good foothold, where she proceeded to sit and gaze vacantly ahead for a few minutes before tucking her head back under her feathers.  It has been a couple of hours now and she has moved a bit around the mesh and her breathing has finally slowed.  My husband is slipping a bit of suet and water in there to see if she shows any interest in either over the next little while.

We can only hope and pray she is not so injured as to not recover, or to not be able to fly.  Hopefully, if she is still alive in the next couple of hours we will be able to get her and her snack into a fabric lined box and get her out onto the deck to reacclimate to the cold weather before the temperature drops for night.  If she isn't ready for that we can put her, in her box,  into the enclosed breezeway and hook up a heating light for the coldest part of the night.  

It doesn't appear at this point that she has any broken wings, mostly a concussion.  If her wings were broken it would be more merciful to let her pass away, but so far so good from what we can see.

I will report the outcome when I have one to report, but for now I am praying for the restoration of this beautiful and precious creature of the air; my favourite bird of the large assembly who are wintering over in our yard.