MYSTERIOUS SONGBIRD DEATHS INVESTIGATED

An Official Pennsylvania Government Website ^ | 07/01/21 | PA Media

[wgmalabama]

Am I first with it must be a COVID surge ? Vaccinate them all.

[wgmalabama]

I wasn’t first. Should have known but a little surprised it took 8 posts.

[Olog-hai]

Certainly is a subjective view to call the series of rasps, hisses and random whistles of the starling a “song”.

[piasa]

...They’re also the ones most likely to visit bird feeders, and since very few people bother to wash their bird feeders this can be a problem. ...It puts these commonly seen species at higher risk of getting communicable diseases than, say, ovenbirds, pheobes, martins and woodcocks.

[cherry]

ants are a big problem for us..

[Erik Latranyi]

grackles and blue jays aint songbirds.

Media bias on display.

If they just said "birds" then it does not evoke the same emotions as "songbirds".

This is manipulation.

[daniel1212]

"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. "

It must be the competition from the demonic noise that too much abounds today which does not even qualify as music.

[bert]

——Probably a tick——

Hmmm......

You may very well be right. In retrospect, it looks like a tick early on, swelled but not yet massive

[Salamander]

Sadly, deer ticks seek out birds to complete their life cycle.

When the sparrows who lived in my mulberry/blackberry thicket stopped coming around, there was a dramatic drop in ticks in the yard.

I hardly ever see ticks now.

[Salamander]

Bizarrely, I have seen more Kildeer this year than in decades, back when every pasture had at least one pair.

Weirder yet, we get flocks of seagulls way out here in the mountains.

Sometimes I wonder if they know something’s coming.

:D

[FamiliarFace]

Yes, and Robins don’t visit feeders. I have feeders of every type and variety so that I can attract every kind of bird. I have a great variety, but the Robins that abound here do not come to the feeders. Manipulation pure and simple.

[Erik Latranyi]

If the problem is bird feeders, I bet they will trace this back to Chinese-made bird seed.

[Hot Tabasco]

Up until last summer I used to have many goldfinches coming to my thistle feeders but something happened and they disappeared. I never saw one all last summer and the feeders were untouched. Some would even stay around during the winter.

I have seen one this summer but that's it.

I have lots of purple and house finches and sparrows and wonder if the sparrows are keeping the gold finches away....

[Hot Tabasco]

A blue jay ate the baby wrens.

A couple years ago I lost a last chickadee fledgling to a Blue Jay. I took care of the problem by putting a new front on the nest box with a smaller hole. It's small enough that the house sparrows can't get in either......

[gundog]

I ya en’t seen a killdeer I some gimd. Seagulls in the high school football fields are a sure sign off a storm, here. If we’re being seriously pounded, I might find Red Headed Ducks in the local park pond. There are coves along the coast that are protected from storms blowing out of the southwest. Winds can be nearly 100mph on top, but when you duck down into the cove, it’s very calm, and there’s a nice rain shadow. I can count on finding Harlequin Ducks hiding in them. Lots of sea lions, too. Walking the beaches after a storm will turn up quite a few dead diving birds...murres and puffins...so it gets pretty brutal off-shore.

The world is pretty hostile to birds. Variations in food supplies, and the weather, force them to relocate. I’m pretty sure that there’s been a general decline in song bird numbers for decades.

[Salamander]

Pretty weird to find seagulls out here in the Appalachians, 100 miles from the ocean, though.

o.O

[gundog]

I remember seeing some kind of gull in Kansas. Migrations take them all over.