{"id":396067,"date":"2026-01-29T02:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T02:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/396067\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T02:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T02:29:10","slug":"diver-feels-touch-on-his-shoulder-and-realizes-a-baby-bird-is-cuddling-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/396067\/","title":{"rendered":"Diver Feels ‘Touch’ On His Shoulder And Realizes A Baby Bird Is Cuddling Him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Gillette knows his role as a wildlife filmmaker is to observe, record and \u201clet nature take its course.\u201d But when a baby bird<\/a> climbed onto his shoulder to escape a circling shark, he froze.<\/p>\n

In that instant, he was no longer just a bystander \u2014 he was a liferaft.<\/p>\n

\"BabyFacebook\/Gator Chris<\/p>\n

Gillette found himself literally face-to-face with the wildlife he was filming while on a dive in Costa Rica\u2019s Cocos National Park a few years ago. He was recording Galapagos sharks when his skiff driver alerted him to a scene unfolding nearby.<\/p>\n

A baby booby had fallen from her nest high on the cliffs and was about to become a meal for the sharks. Camera in hand, Gillette swam toward the white fluffball. \u201cI recorded a little footage of the baby booby swimming, but I was more focused on looking down for the large shark,\u201d Gillette wrote in a Facebook post<\/a>. \u201cAs I was looking down, I felt something touch my shoulder.\u201d<\/p>\n

The baby bird pressed herself against Gillette\u2019s face, seeking warmth and protection. \u201c[I was] very surprised,\u201d Gillette told The Dodo. \u201cIt\u2019s a wild animal, you know. And to have it come toward you as a human is always very unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gillette knew he couldn\u2019t truly save the booby. He wasn\u2019t supposed to intervene. Still, his heart broke as the frail, impossibly soft baby wrapped a wing around his neck.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely seemed to see me as a refuge \u2014 from the elements, from the sharks and for comfort,\u201d Gillette said. \u201cIt was nuzzling up against my neck, and it was the saddest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BabyFacebook\/Gator Chris<\/p>\n

Gillette began trying to work out some way to help the animal, but every possibility eventually turned into a dead end.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur dive master said the booby would not survive and that we should leave it in the water to die, but after having it choose me as safety and ride on my shoulder I felt quite attached,\u201d Gillette wrote on Facebook. \u201cI asked if there was any sort of bird rehab but there is literally NOTHING out here for over 300 miles except a scarcely staffed ranger station and no one with the knowledge or ability to care for the bird.\u201d<\/p>\n

Facebook\/Gator Chris<\/p>\n

Gillette couldn\u2019t stand to watch the baby bird drown or be eaten, so he did the one thing within his power: He brought her to land. As he climbed back into the skiff, the bird remained perched on his shoulder.<\/p>\n

Gillette tried to remain as hands-off as possible in case the bird decided to dive back into the water. Once ashore, he found a patch of ferns against a rock that could offer some shelter to the shivering booby.<\/p>\n

Facebook\/Gator Chris<\/p>\n

“From this point I had to let nature handle the rest and leave the bird to the island without further help,” Gillette wrote on Facebook. “The baby seemed to be just getting its adult feathers in and there were other bird nests in the area so I hoped that it could manage on its own or perhaps another bird would help it. I know that is wishful thinking on my part, but I really hope this little fluffball survived.”<\/p>\n

To this day, Gillette still isn’t sure if he did the right thing. He’ll never know if the baby bird survived the night or if her mom heard her calls. But he still thinks of that day and the impossible decision he was faced with.<\/p>\n

“I was like, I’m gonna do what I can. I don’t know if this is the right thing to do necessarily, but I just I couldn’t just leave it,” Gillette said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gillette has since stepped away from wildlife filmmaking to open an alligator and exotic animal sanctuary in Florida. At Bellowing Acres<\/a>, Gillette is able to rescue and rehabilitate animals and give them a second chance at life, something he deeply wished he could do for that baby booby. On his 40-acre property he cares for over 250 animals, from crocodiles to parrots to African crested porcupines. When he met the baby bird, opening a sanctuary was just a dream \u2014 now helping wild animals is Gillette’s reality.<\/p>\n

\"Adventure<\/a>Adventure Guide Stunned When Penguin Jumps Into Her Kayak And Gives Her A HugHe was asking for help.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Gillette knows his role as a wildlife filmmaker is to observe, record and \u201clet nature take its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[5441,26985,148640,148639,148641,10680,5439,5440,148638,90,5438,5436,387,56,54,55,4407,16133],"class_list":{"0":"post-396067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal-encounters","9":"tag-baby-animals","10":"tag-baby-bird","11":"tag-best-trip-ever","12":"tag-blue-footed-booby","13":"tag-costa-rica","14":"tag-daily-dodo","15":"tag-happy-corner","16":"tag-lily-feinn","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-standard","19":"tag-the-dodo","20":"tag-travel","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-unitedkingdom","24":"tag-wildlife","25":"tag-wildlife-rescue"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}