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  • Heather Steiger's job as a bird mama is done. The 8-year-old East Side resident cared for six baby wrens for nearly a month after they were orphaned. Late last week, the birds flew off into the wild. Dan Irwin

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July 7, 2011

‘Bird Mama’: Girl’s orphaned wrens take flight

Brandi Shaffer News Correspondent

NEW CASTLE — For some, nurturing is just second nature.

Over the course of five weeks, Heather Steiger, 8, cared for six baby wrens whose parents went MIA. She fed them a solution of blended dry cat food and water through a syringe, a task that filled up most of her time. But when the time came to set the little ones free, she met with some resistance.

The chicks scuttled behind her, still not flying, following her every move through the yard. Heather even tried going into the house and a screen was the only thing keeping them from following her inside.

After their unsuccessful attempts to set the birds free in their own backyard, Heather and her father ventured to Heather’s grandmother’s house. The young birds hung around the yard for a day, but have since returned to the wild.

“I started crying a little bit,” Heather said about when she first let them go. “I stopped when I realized I would have a freer life.”

Being a bird mother was time-consuming business (toward the end, the young birds got restless for more grub every three minutes), so now Heather has time to get back to the kind of lazy summer every kid is entitled to, filled with coloring, swimming, a bit of television and some video games.

The Steiger family suspects the wrens’ parents were killed by neighborhood cats, so whenever Heather spots a feline in the yard, she retrieves a squirt gun.

A New Castle News story last week about Heather and her birds caught the attention of state senator Elder Vogel Jr. and he sent her a card containing the laminated story clip.

“She’ll be the only one at school who got a card from the senator,” Heather’s mother, Stacey, said.

Though Heather has no plans to care for baby animals in the near future — her exact words were “Nooo, never ever again!” —  she hopes to become a rabbit trainer when she grows up. In fact, more birds are building a nest in their birdhouse, and the family’s dreading a retread of this month’s events.

More than anything, Heather’s experience as a bird mother has given her a healthy respect for nature.

“(I learned) to never keep wild animals too long because they’ll die and they become very little when you keep them,” Heather said.

Now, when she finds frogs or praying mantises in the yard, she observes them for about an hour before making sure they go back into the wild — to follow around their own mothers.

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