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Hi to all of you.
I hope you are all enjoying the christmas period
I am presently very concerned regarding a disease affecting the finches:Trichomonas. Its a disease that affect the throat of the finches, eventually preventing them from eating and causing them to die. When, very advanced, the bird regurgitate its food and if eaten by another bird the virus get transmitted and the vicious circle never ends. It is rather serious matter.
Since I arrived in my new house, I have been noticing several finches affected by it (I reported all of these to the RSPB): 2 greenfinches that I eventually found dead in my garden. Last week end I spotted a chaffinch with it, I monitored her presence in my garden. Today, I didnt see her at all, so I expect that with the cold and unability to feed, she hasnt made it. It is very heartbreaking but I was waiting for her to die, as she was terminal and highly contagious to the rest of the finches. Today,as I was just getting relieve from her disappearance, I saw another bird with all the symptoms, a goldfinch, quite terminal as well.
Now, the recommandation is to stop feeding the birds.
1-Shall I completely stop feeding the birds in winter though?There are so many birds coming to visit my garden, tits, robins, pigeon, jackdaws, dunnock, starlings.... And so little ressources available in these cold winters. I monitor carefully the birds, I only have clingers, fat cakes, I have a table but I monitor the birds going to it (and clean it every day), I scatter seeds on the ground very coarsely and on a large area as well.
2-Shall I stop feeding the birds if the neighbours next to me still carry on feeding them? I went and spoke to them about the issue. Although they were aware of it, they didnt see any ill nor dead bird in their garden so I am not sure what they will do regarding their feeding habits.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
is
This is awful - I've not heard of this disease before. I haven't seen any dead or dying birds in the garden, and I would probably put it down to natural causes if I did. Now I think of it, there have been very few greenfinches around, but as there are other feeders in gardens, and woodlands and fields nearby, I didn't think anything of it.
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas.
Thank you very much for all your advice and help. I really appreciate that.
I am going to do my best to help the finches and other birds. I have decided to write an article on Trichomonas for my community journal, that way my neighbourhood will be aware of that disease and will hopefully be better armed to better help our birds.
I have myself found it very difficult to stop feeding the birds, because of the harsh weather and because of my feeling of a lost battle with the immediate neighbours. I feel that if I stop feeding the birds all the ones that relied on my garden will go to theirs, so even more congregation at their feeders and chances for infection.
I have nonetheless change my feeding habits. It is not possible to completely guaranty that the disease wont spread by changing my feeding habits, but it certainly help reduce the risk of spreading the disease at least in my garden, but that is all I can control anyway. The finches love to eat in group where they are plenty of tall feeders full of sunflower seeds. So I have removed all the feeders that the finches used to congregate to. I have only left 1 clinger, 1 fat ball feeder and 1 fat cake where the tits and starlings tends to go, they are the odd 2 goldfinches that rarely venture to the clinger, but as they have to cling I know that they are not at the terminal stage of the disease when they are the weakest and most infectious to the others. I have reduced my seeds rations and I scattered the seeds throughout all the garden and 3 times a day to avoid as much as possible any congregation at a given time. I feed big pieces of cake and cheese to the jackdaws who are the first to come to the table, followed by the woodpigeons and collared doves. They seem to be bossy enough to not let the chaffinches form big congregations but still have a few seeds. I have also encouraged the ground feeders like the blackcaps, the robins and the blackbirds to meet in a different area from all the others birds by scattering some high energy sprinkle, suet coated sunflower seeds and dried mealworms under shrubs that are planted in pots. It works nicely too. Basically, I am trying to pay more attention to the way the different bird species naturally prefer to feed and to the food they would prefer to eat. Finally, I monitor them a lot with my binoculars and so far no sign of trichomonas since the last case. Lets hope it lasts.
Thank you very much for your advice. I have reported to the rspb team the 4 dead birds and I have also been given the email of Kirsi.
I believe that they are asking us to report these dead birds so that they can monitor the disease and establish the areas where trichomonas has been observed.
Well I wish you all to have nice after Christmas and new year.
Thank you again for your support. This forum is really great.
Hi Isabel,
Wow! You have really thought this through and have come up with some excellent ideas - especially the article for your community magazine That is a really good way of advising neighbours of the dangers of poor hygiene without having to confront them directly. I do hope this, and your new feeding methods, work. Maybe you get your local newspaper interested in doing an article about it.
I must also add you have a lovely collection of species visiting your garden, and you clearly spend time observing their habits. I also watch my garden birds for hours and try to feed appropriately. I also sprinkle food for the ground feeders in my shrub tubs and around and in between the groups of tubs, although the starlings and house sparrows usually find it first, which can be annoying when they have their own feeders and have no need to feed from the ground!!!!
Good luck!
Cheers, Linda.
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