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Luces Huayhuaca
Portland, OR, USA
This is my bird feeder and it is the talk of the town among downtown Portland birdies. This picture was taken in January 2021. During the winter, they arrive every day around 7:30. They come and go throughout the day, and they are gone by 4:30-5 PM when it gets dark. Today, January 27th, one of those visitors showed up really early (at 6:30 AM) which I thought suspicious. Then I noticed he was not eating, which I also thought weird because they only come here to eat. So I went outside and grab him gently and brought him into my house. The birdie seemed sick because he didn’t move much, though he was still breathing. I kept an eye on him and two hours later he passed away peacefully. I kept him around the whole day just to make sure he was indeed dead. I buried him in the evening. I wonder what kind of sickness birdies carry around here. All I could tell is that this birdie did not of “finch eye disease”.
Finches
My bird feeder in downtown, Portland Oregon.
Hello Luces, I wonder if your bird may have had salmonella. I have had some sick pine siskins in my Seattle yard this winter and found out (through a google search) that it was salmonella. They would hang around the feeders looking listless long after the other birds had dispersed at dusk. Goldfinches were another species that was mentioned as being particularly vulnerable to salmonella. I learned it was spread through crowded feeders, so I took down my thistle feeders for the remainder of the season since those were what the siskins were using. I washed and sanitized the sunflower seed and suet feeders and when the siskins left the area I put those back up. Saw another sick siskin in the yard last week, in a tree, not at a feeder.
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