[Birdtalk] Drunk Siskins

[ConnieM]

Kris,Thanks for the info.  Since reading the posts on drunk siskins, I've
been watching the little guys that come to my feeders more closely.  So far,
they're just fine.

Your comment about using wooden platform feeders is exactly analagous to my
feeder table.  I have been thinking I need to replace that table top and use
the current one for fire wood.  Now I'm going to do so for sure.

ConnieM in beautiful Cache county

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 9:22 AM, Kristin Purdy <kristinpurdy at comcast.net>wrote:

> It's quite possible that the siskins appearing drunk at feeder stations
> have a disease called salmonellosis. Just as humans are more likely to
> become sick when contacting concentrations of other sick members of our
> species, birds are, too. It's especially common at feeder stations in the
> winter.
>
> I've seen the highest incidence of birds with salmonellosis at my feeder
> this year and concidentailly, all the sick ones have been siskins. Symptoms
> include those that people have reported: an even higher level of
> approachability than usual, mostly flying up off the ground when I approach
> the feeder. The sick birds are fluffed up and may appear to fall asleep as
> you watch them. They hang around the feeder all day and sometimes hop on the
> ground in an un-siskin-like posture, feathers fluffed, tail cocked and wings
> drooping. They may also hang around the water source. Sometimes in a close
> view, their breasts are very puffed and I can detect their labored
> breathing. This last symptom may also be a sign of another disease called
> aspergillosis.
>
> Salmonellosis is transmitted through infected droppings and it's no wonder
> to me that primarily siskins have it at my feeders. To control the diseases,
> I stopped using wooden tray feeders a couple years ago that the House
> Finches just sit in and eat and poop. In addition, the recommended cleaning
> with a weak solution of wather and bleach is too difficult in the winter, so
> I switched to plastic and metal feeders where birds must sit on perches or
> cling to mesh sides and pull out individual seeds. I haven't, however, been
> able to control seeds dropping on the ground, which is where many of the
> siskins feed. While they also cling to seed socks, lots of seed spills from
> heir feeding and my usual high population of siskins seeths over the ground
> under the sunflower and nyger feeders.
>
> The last solution, which I did last year and I'm about to do again, is to
> remove my feeders for a week or two and sweep up the seed. This allows all
> the birds to disperse and the sick ones to die. Birds will recongregate
> quickly once the feeders go back up and my hope is that the returning birds
> will be healthy.
>
> For more information on sick birds at your feeder, see this link from the
> Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology:
>
> http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/AboutBirdsandFeeding/DiseasedBirds.htm
>
> Kris
>
> _______________________________________________
> Birdtalk mailing list
> Birdtalk at utahbirds.org
> http://utahbirds.org/mailman/listinfo/birdtalk
>



-- 
Connie McManus
Nibley, Cache County, Utah
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://secureserver.securesites.net/pipermail/birdtalk/attachments/20090413/9d32b82b/attachment.htm