Hi all, I'm just forwarding an email that came across another listserv, that may be of interest here.
Andrea Patterson andrea.j.patterson-at-gmail.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sandy Morrissey <san...@cloud9.net> Date: Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 1:09 AM Subject: Anyone else have lots of dead Eastern Bluebirds? To: birdb...@listserv.ksu.edu I have over 300 nestboxes in Westchester County, NY, and have been banding the nesting bluebirds for the past 7 years. This year we are experiencing a high mortality rate in the bluebirds. Monitors open a nestbox and there is a dead adult bird in the box. The number of dead adults has risen to 18. There is almost an equal number of dead males and females. The birds are being tested by a laboratory at Cornell (Animal Health Diagnostic Center). While they suspect it might be a parasite, they have no answers yet. Very strange that the birds go into the nestbox to die. I can understand if the female dies while spending time incubating on the nest, but the males seem to go into the box to die also. They are often found on eggs. Who knows how many bluebirds have died that we don't know about. Our number of bluebird nest attempts and number of bands is down by about 40%. The rate of successful nests has crashed. Hope no one else is having this problem, but would be most interested to know. Sandy Morrissey Hartsdale, NY 914-391-3695 -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
