A few years ago our neighbourhood experienced a loss of 12+ pine grosbeaks. Today I have seen 2 birds with the same symptoms. The grosbeaks become quite distended…to the point their wing feathers do not tuck into their bodies, plus their necks also appear swollen. They become very lethargic to the point you could walk up to them and pick them up. Their death is inevitable and very disturbing to witness. Please watch out for this happening to the birds in your yard. When this happened before it only affected the pine grosbeaks. The other winter species did not seem to be affected so it may have been a viral type of illness, specific to that breed. But…it is worth a reminder to all of us to be careful with our feeding practices.
The advice we were given by a fellow in the CO office, and a local vet who sees a lot of birds in his practice was:
- Keep your feeders CLEAN. You can look up the care of feeders on the internet. It is recommended that they be cleaned with a weak bleach solution about every 5 days. This would be the type of feeders that the birds actually stand in (as “ground feeders” such as grosbeaks)
- Use appropriate food. Do not feed birds bread or other left over foods. (exceptions could be birds that eat carrion?)
- Clean up ground around feeders.
- Once warmer weather starts wean birds off your feeders, i.e. slowly decrease the amount of food you put out. Birds can develop intestinal problems when they gorge on available food. They also would go for feeders instead of varying their diet with what nature intended them to eat.
Posted by Bev Lorimer, Lac Le Jeune resident
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