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Brood X in yellow. Indiana and Pennsylvania.
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 ...
Same here. They like to dive down for bugs as I am mowing.
My family of House Finches are AWOL
Carpenter bees definitely send a signal. If I swat one down with a badminton racket I will see more come and buzz around it.
Maybe there was something nasty in the ‘free seeds’ the Chinese sent over here!
Brood X in yellow. Indiana and Pennsylvania.
Plenty of Robins, Gold Finches, Sparrows, Blue Jays, Juncos etc around here, but very few butterflies and no dragonflies this spring. Something’s going on...
Are you noticing anything?
—”grackles and blue jays aint songbirds.”
Depends who you ask.
Passerines sometimes known as perching birds or songbirds
A passerine (/ˈpæsəraɪn/) is any bird of the order Passeriformes (/ˈpæsərɪfɔːrmiːz/; from Latin passer ‘sparrow’ and formis ‘-shaped’), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or songbirds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by the arrangement of their toes (three pointing forward and one back), which facilitates perching.
Same thing works for wasps except I use a brown paper bag just stuffed with something to give it some bulk. Hang one in the barn on each side and no wasps. They are scared to death of hornets and think it is a hornet nest.
I hang my camper shell up from the rafters of the barn shed, put a fluffed up paper bag in it, no dirt dobbers or wasps at all.
The Indians around here say if you take an old boot, catch it on fire then put it out and drag the smoldering boot around the yard you won’t have any snakes inside the perimeter either. Somehow I am skeptical of that one but the hornet nest thing works and the Indians put me on to that one too
Interesting, the poultry producers have their antenna up for avian flu. Of course that is pretty much all the time I think.
I do ornithology research and intensively monitor about 100 nestboxes. Focal species are Eastern Bluebirds, Tree Swallows, House Wrens, American Kestrels.
Sometimes I’ll find all nestlings dead in a nestbox. That can be the result of an adult caregiver dying due to predation, car strike, etc. It unfortunately just happens.
This year, three boxes of Tree Swallows have been found with mortalities. In one box, all nestlings were found dead and they were checked and were fine about 24 hours earlier. In another box (for American Kestrel), three of five in the clutch were found dead. One of the surviving nestlings in this box had a slight watery discharge of the left eye, but it was minor. The surviving nestlings successfully fledged.
There were no wounds found on any dead nestlings. House Sparrows will sometimes attack and kill birds in boxes, but we aggressively trap and humanely destroy if caught. The number of House Sparrows trapped this year is down about 40% from last year.
In the case of the entire clutch being lost, both male and female Tree Swallows were perched in the nestbox, entered the nestbox, etc. The same for the partial clutch being lost in the American Kestrel nestbox - all adult caregivers (sometimes a second female will assist in removing fecal sacs, etc) were exhibiting a strong challenge response when I approached the nestbox. Adult caregivers will not remain in the area if the nestlings have been predated, etc.
Given that the nestlings had not yet fledged and no nests of stinging or biting insects were found in the nestboxes, nor did any of the nestling mortalities exhibit signs of stinging or biting, I think it’s logical to look at food as a potential vector for the mortalities. Could be something abnormal about the insects, could be there had been recent spraying and affected insects were gathered by the adults as part of their food bolus and fed to nestlings. The mortalities happened in close time proximity to each other.
There are many bacterial and viral illnesses which transcend species.
Avian Flus chief among them.
Where do they originate?
I haven’t a clue. Perhaps in Nature, or are man-made, chemically.
Bumblebees and Honeybees are finally making a comeback after 8-10yrs, in my gardens.
An additional note, this looks to be a record year for Bluebird nesting attempts, eggs laid, hatched and successfully fledged nestlings, even factoring in early season nesting failures.
My neighbor tried that. The bees moved over to my house.
Thanks for that insight. Please let us know if you find out more.
I noticed here in South Florida...
Dead bees. In my back yard are MANY varieties of flowers. I’ve never seen what I see lately. Dead bees. I don’t use preside either.
I have three large Jasmine trees which are about 20’ tall. Each month when they bloom you can smell them 5 houses away. When in bloom the sheer volume of bees flying through those trees makes a buzzing and humming sound that is heard throughout the yard. In only one bloom outbreak have the bees been swarming.
Too often I sit out with my coffee and have a bee fly nearby, land in some clumsy fashion, walk oddly for a foot, curl up and die. I’ve never seen this before.
I will say that 5g is being installed by AT&T in this area. Not sure if it is related, but worth mentioning
I’ve heard that possibility mentioned before (back when the honeybee depopulations first started making the news.)
Sound & light pollution, loss of contiguous habitat, etc. Hard to quantify, but lots of potential challenges for the wild things.
Mockingbirds are amazing. They can sing for hours while looking for a mate. Then one day it is over until next year.
They start before dawn which can be pretty rough this time of year.
We get Northern Flickers here in North Idaho that just love to make drumming noise to attract a mate. They are particularly fond of sheet metal and have found our chimney cap to be a good drum. The sound travels down the metal flue right into our house!
I’m surprised the crow isn’t on the “songbird” list. One day last week, 35 to 40 crows showed up around our house and landed in the tops of the nearby tall trees. What a racket! Thank God they moved on and decided to not roost there for the summer.
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