What are "Best Practices" for injured/ill birds?

I was walking yesterday, right off the busiest street in town and saw this little bird on the sidewalk. It was clearly not reacting normally to the fact that people, dogs, and vehicles were very close to it, and it didn't move when I crouched beside it to check on it. I didn't see any injury;  it had all of its flight feathers and I didn't see a nest in view anywhere in case it had just fledged and was too scared to move further. It looked like a thrush but was smaller than I expected that type of bird to be (so I thought it might be an adolescent).

After watching it for a while and being concerned about the dogs around us, I decided to try to move it to an island in the street that is full of plants and isn't really walked on.
I found a large clamshell container in someone's recycling bin and scooped it inside, where it seemed distressed and started moving and struggling a bit more. I carried it quickly across the street and tipped it out into the shrubbery. I went back later and saw no evidence that it had either been there or had been attacked there so I am hoping it survived.

It made me wonder if I should have picked it up by hand or not. Was there anything else I should have looked for? I have rescued birds from cold and window strikes over the years but this was a little different since I couldn't tell what was wrong. Is there any danger in handling birds? should i have offered it anything else to see if it would revive. I'm not in a place to access help from a wildlife rescue center and I'd like to be prepared as much as possible on my own. I would love any guidance on best practices for encountering birds that may need help.

From my daughter the bird nerd!  :



The closed eyes definitely indicate it's in distress. It sounds like you did the right thing, just quickly bringing it to a more secluded, ideally shady spot (in case of something like heat exhaustion- in which case the bird may have its beak open/panting). While best avoided when possible, if the bird's in a dangerous spot like that handling it for as long as it takes to move it isn't inherently bad if you do so delicately. It's stressful, certainly, but the situation it's in is already stressful. While there's many things that could be wrong here, one possibility is HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza), a deadly and highly contagious disease which all birds can catch. As such, make sure you wash your hands (and anything else that may have come in contact with the bird) off real well after events like this- the disease can be a death sentence for domestic poultry and other pet flocks. Also, without knowing your location, my best guess for species is wood thrush.

Thank you for this helpful info. It sounds like I handled this situation correctly under the circumstances. The concerns with illness hadn't really occurred to me until I saw a bird with avian pox and then was hearing about interspecies transmission occurrences with other illnesses. It's hard for me to leave an animal either suffering or in danger but I want to do whatever I do in the best interest of both me and the bird.

I believe your id as a wood thrush is correct, based on the size and markings as well as coastal mid Atlantic/Northeast US location. I am more familiar with brown thrashers which are larger and was a little confused because it looked like a tiny, shorter tailed brown thrasher.