A few days ago I saw a male House Finch acting rather oddly. He was on the ground way too much, and would not fly away when I came close. When he did fly it was very slow. I thought that he had probably had a close call with a hawk or cat, and was injured. The next day I noticed he was still flying badly. He was able to get to the feeder, so I thought maybe the food would help him recover. Well, yesterday I saw him again. This time he spent a really long time just laying in the grass. I could walk right up to him, and he wouldn't notice me. This is when I noticed that he couldn't see. His eyes were swollen shut. That would explain the slow and irregular flying I thought. After all, if we were suddenly blind, our walking would become slow and awkward as well. So, I immediately went to the computer, typed in House Finch Eyes into Yahoo, and was directed to Cornell's site. They talked about the disease known as Conjunctivitis. Their site said that the disease was treatable. Another website said it was not treatable, but to take the diseased bird to the wildlife treatment center anyway. I called the center in Roseville, and the girl told me that it was treatable. After my wife threw a towel over the sick bird, we put it in a box and drove it to the treatment center. When we arrived at the center in Roseville, the vet had told her (the woman I spoke to on the phone) that it was not treatable, but it was good that we brought him in anyway. I'm not sure what they did with him. When I arrived back at home, I took my feeders down, cleaned them, raked underneath and rehung them. I also cleaned out my birdbath. Today, while observing the birds in the backyard, I noticed another odd flying one. This time it was a female. I looked with my binoculars and saw that her eyes were very red. She also has the disease. When she landed on my feeder, I tried to capture her, but unsuccesfully. She could see a little better than the male we caught yesterday and just managed to slip away when I put the towel over her. So now, the only thing that I can think of doing, is to take my feeders down for a while. I hope by doing this, the healthy ones will move on to find food elsewhere, and not become infected. I will still try and capture any infected birds I see, but I am out of any other ideas. Any of you have any suggestions?
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