Hello. I'm new to this comminity and generally to garden bird feeding and, like many, discovered the joys of birding feeding over the last 15 months. I also joined the RSPB last year. However I am very much a naive, novice and sadly, ignorant enthusiast.
TRICHOMONOSIS URGENT HELP PLEASE.
Im very sad and devastated to have found Trichomonosis in both house sparrows and chaffinch in my garden. Please could anyone offer me extra advice on this awful disease which appeared in my garden 6 days ago.
I have been feeding the birds for 18 months with 3 seed feeders, a table and peanut feeder. They were washed every 2 weeks but not moved in location. I have a large rural garden with natural hedges on all 4 sides and fields surround our immediate vicinity. We have several nest boxes around the garden with about half now being occupied by sparrows, blue tits and robin. The hedges are full of sparrows.
On the advice of the RSPB help service, I removed all my feeders and bird bath. I do still have a wildlife pond. I had hoped the birds would disperse within a day or two, but I'm continuing to see dozens of very hungry sparrows, tits and chaffinch mainly, searching my garden all day for food. The nest box females call and call out of the hole all day to be fed. The Robin's fly straight over to me every time I go out in the hope of being fed. I have a pair of bemused and hungry greater spotted woodpeckers who are scratching around the ground below where the peanuts used to be. They spend a huge amount of time searching instead of flying off to find another food source.
The goldfinches and siskins disappeared very quickly to find new food sources but I think the remainder of the birds have become so dependent they are unwilling to give up.
I monitor the birds constantly from the window and so far have seen 2 Chaffinch and 2 sparrows with obvious Trichomonosis as they hang around near the feeding areas and are easy to see. So far, I havent had any bodies, but our garden has too many hedges and cover if they die in these areas, I am unlikely to find them.
We only have one neigbour who is approximately 200m away. They also feed the birds daily and are refusing to remove their feeders, despite me seeing a poorly sparrow on one of their tables when I went round to ask them.
I'm at a complete loss what to do. Everything I read and have been advised to do tends to relate to summer or early autumn outbreaks. Nothing advises on the balance between halting the disease by stopping feeding and letting the existing and nesting birds starve. As my neighbour is refusing to stop feeding too, surely this situation will go round and round in a perpetual loop with some of our starving birds heading over to our neighbour?
To make things worse, a new flock of Redpolls has appeared next door and I have seen them drinking from our pond.
Please can anyone off more advice or reassurance that I'm doing the right thing in denying the healthy birds a continuing food source?
Thank you for any helpful information or advice you can give me.
Cin J
I didn’t think it’s deemed inappropriate I stopped feeding and water 8 1/2 weeks ago which was very hard as the birds didn’t disperse as I was told they would I began feeding 3 days ago as I saw no sick birds which I was told to do I have know been around to my neighbours a couple of days ago which is a few miles away who has dirty feeders and water and a few sick birds. So I’m concerned that I might get some of those birds again I’m sure you have an negative opinion to write about as you seem to I Won’t ask anything again I will go where people speak kindly to each other and not judge people who are trying to learn