Posted on 07/05/2021 5:59:42 AM PDT by P.O.E.
HARRISBURG, PA - Wildlife health experts from the Wildlife Futures Program (WFP) at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) and officials from the Pennsylvania Game Commission are investigating more than 70 general public reports of songbirds that are sick or dying due to an emerging health condition that is presently unknown.
As of July 1, 2021, reports from the public chronicle both adult and young birds exhibiting signs of the condition. The most common clinical symptoms include discharge and/or crusting around the eyes, eye lesions, and/or neurologic signs such as falling over or head tremors.
Affected birds are being tested for several toxins, parasites, bacterial diseases, and viral infections. To date, test results have been inconclusive.
Twelve species have been reported: Blue Jay, European Starling, Common Grackle, American Robin, Northern Cardinal, House Finch, House Sparrow, Eastern Bluebird, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Carolina Chickadee, and Carolina Wren.
(Excerpt) Read more at media.pa.gov ...
Probably a tick.
Birds get a 24 hour “virus”, kind of like a cold.
Their eyes get stuck shut from the discharge and they get snatched by predators while grounded from the temporary blindness.
If you simply take a wet Q tip and clean off the goop, they survive.
I would think that the massive flocks would be more vulnerable to the turbines. The others probably stick close to forests. You should have resident catbirds, and mockingbirds. Wrens don’t migrate. I would suspect something closer to home. Where’s the nearest wind farm?
Keyser WV.
However, there are massive solar farms east of me.
My birds are going missing.
:’(
What are your insect populations like?
About a month ago I saw a female American redstart on the ground next to the brick walk in our heavily vegetated front yard in Miami. I reach down; it didn’t fly but scurried into the bushes. Later that day I found it dead near the walk.
Used to be bugs galore.
I do have a fair population of slugs this year.
My ginormous nightcrawlers are less.
The frogs are scarce, as well.
Even my beloved Orb Weavers are really sparse.
We use NO chemicals on the yard at all and most of it is what people consider “weeds” mixed with old, established grasses, which the rabbits and groundhogs loved.
I am extremely upset by the collective absence of my critters.
I need to look up if any 5G towers were installed nearby.
I’m sure it’s a multi-faceted problem.
Well crap. :(
It sucks!
Sounds like a window-strike. Sometimes I find dead birds on walks. First thing I do is look up. Power lines. Things fly in the dark and hit them, especially on ridges.
Some of it may be normal fluctuation. Hard to tell. I saw a bird inland a bit. I haven’t noticed that one in that area before. Need to get a positive ID.
This has been getting progressively worse for *years*.
I haven’t seen the obligatory Grackle mass invasion in a decade.
For the last few years, my mob of Mulberry trees were barely touched.
Thousands rotted on the ground because no one was there to eat them.
I’m leaning toward Cassin’s Vireo on the new bird.
We don’t feed the birds in summer and we were away in June, so I’m not too aware of any changes in number. We haven’t seen dead ones in our corner of PA. What has been weird though is that we have been under assault by carpenter ants. We live at the edge of the woods, so we’re used to occasional skirmishes with them. In May we returned from a weekend trip to find hundreds or maybe a thousand of them in the basement in my husband’s shop. The exterminator reduced it a lot, but we’re having him come back to re-treat. The family built the house in 1963, and we’ve never seen anything like it. Fireflies seem down too, and perhaps butterflies.
No, it’s not normal; hasn’t been for years.
Carpenter ants had infested my shed, so I took to sprays, powders, etc. The little buggers hatched special winged scouts that took off for greener pastures. In other words, here I am, top of the food chain, with all the technological prowess at my disposal, etc., outsmarted by an ant.
I think our fireflies were up this year. Usually they peak around Father’s Day, but this year it was a little bit later, maybe a week. We still have a good bunch of them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.