Blue tit rescued from Ipswich garden may become 'a friend for life'

A blue tit found abandoned in a back garden seems to have adopted his human rescuer as his mother.

The bird, now 10 weeks old and named Dinky, was found featherless and the size of a thumb-nail in a tree near Ipswich.

Jess Lockwood nursed him back to health by feeding him every 45 minutes and ever since, he refuses to leave her.

She said: "If he wants to have his freedom then he's welcome to it. If not, I think I might have a friend for life here."

Paul Stancliffe, from the British Trust for Ornithology, said it was always best to put young birds back in the nest, as Ms Lockwood had tried to do, but in this case "if it had been left at the age it was, it would have almost certainly died".

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