Recently, I found 2 disabled redpolls and 1 dead one in my yard. I thought I may have been dealing with window strikes or other injuries, but then late on Thursday, another observer (Courtney Kerns) from Grand Rapids noted multiple sick redpolls in more than one location.
Early yesterday morning, I took down all of the feeders, and because I was not going to be around long in the morning, I shoveled a heap of snow on top of each pile of seed litter to keep them away until I could clean it well, which I plan on doing today if the snow crust allows. While I was out there, I found 4 sick redpolls, at least 2 of them completely unable to fly. They appeared bloated, had feathers missing from their wings, obvious feather loss on the rump, and were breathing very hard...looked like panting. They seemed to be oblivious to my presence. Courtney noted that the sick birds were females, and now that I think about it, it does seem like those in my yard were females. Also, I remember a few days ago having one unusually tame Pine Siskin under the feeder. In hindsight, this bird was likely sick as well. The other usual visitors seem fine, which maybe indicates that contaminated seed and suet isn't a culprit. I plan on posting to the MOU listserv to 1) let others know to watch for this, 2) see if anyone has the expertise to attempt a 'diagnosis' and can provide additional guidance or maybe even say whether the likely affliction is avian-only or something like salmonella that would warrant taking personal precautions. For now, the squirrels and chickadees are bouncing from shepherd's crook to shepherd's crook wondering why the gravy train left the station. I don't plan on rehanging the feeders until I've soaked them in bleach solution and until the redpolls have pretty much hit the road. Courtney provided these links: http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/fact_sheets/coping_with_diseases_at_birdfeeders.jsp http://birding.about.com/od/birdconservation/a/spreadillness.htm -- Shawn Conrad http://users.2z.net/itasca_chippewa_birding/ ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
