Well, this is a new discovery for me, anyway

I found a baby, about 13 days old, on the ground yesterday evening. He/she looked fine - no apparent reason to be down. But I decided to keep him overnight, and feed him crickets. So, the usual difficult thing - force the mouth open, shove down some food. About every half hour until dark I gave him 4 or 5 crickets. When their parents feed them, they gape, which shows the parents the bright inside yellow of the mouth and is an indication that they want food. And down goes the dragonfly into that waiting space. When they are full, they stop gaping. So, when hand feeding a bird, in the first place its difficult, and in the second place you don't know when they've had enough. Well, for some reason this morning after forcing a few down him, I decided to whistle to him -- maybe sound like a bird ? (I'm not a good whistler, so it in no way mimicked a martin, but it
was a whistle.) To my astonishment, he gaped for me. Another cricket - I whistled as I brought the cricket towards him, and he gaped again. Wow, it is so easy when they do that. I've just come in from feeding him this way again, and he ate about 10 crickets. He gaped for every one of them, and when he was full he didn't gape. This afternoon, when the babies are sleeping, we'll put him back where I think he came from. By then he'll have had a couple more feeds, and I hope this method continues to work, because WHAT A DIFFERENCE it made for the stress level of this landlord as well as the bird
