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 ...
Am I first with it must be a COVID surge ? Vaccinate them all.
I wasn’t first. Should have known but a little surprised it took 8 posts.
Certainly is a subjective view to call the series of rasps, hisses and random whistles of the starling a “song”.
...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.
ants are a big problem for us..
Media bias on display.
If they just said "birds" then it does not evoke the same emotions as "songbirds".
This is manipulation.
It must be the competition from the demonic noise that too much abounds today which does not even qualify as music.
——Probably a tick——
Hmmm......
You may very well be right. In retrospect, it looks like a tick early on, swelled but not yet massive
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.
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
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.
If the problem is bird feeders, I bet they will trace this back to Chinese-made bird seed.
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....
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......
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.
Pretty weird to find seagulls out here in the Appalachians, 100 miles from the ocean, though.
o.O
I remember seeing some kind of gull in Kansas. Migrations take them all over.
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