This is one of those odd bird encounters with two stories behind it. I was home looking out the back sliding door and noticed this male House Finch in a Palo Verde tree. I did not think anything odd about this except when I looked out again 5 minutes later and the bird was still sitting on the same branch. At first I thought it was asleep but when I looked at it through the binoculars there was a problem. Both of it's eyes were swollen shut. It would move it's head very slowly from side to side but otherwise was very still. I got my camera and tripod and slowly walked to about 10 feet from it and took pictures. One of these stories is about always looking behind you. As I was about to back away I looked over my shoulder and saw a western diamondback rattlesnake crawling just 2 feet behind my ankles. It did not rattle at all as it passed behind me to a prickly pear cactus, curled up under the cactus and appeared to bed down.
After that encounter I watched this Finch (from the back porch) for the next 30 minutes. The finch finally did drop down to the ground in a crash type landing and was stumbling around like a blind bird.
One part of me wanted to go out and pick the bird up to help but the other decided to leave it be and so I did. After a minute on the ground rubbing it's eyes I did see one eye come open slightly and at that point it flew back up to crash land in a higher portion of the tree. I went inside to put my camera up, looked for the bird but never did see it again.
A couple of thoughts I had on this encounter was; #1)That I wanted to help this bird but ended up leaving it alone to work things out for itself and #2)Always look behind you before you start to back away.
I thought I would show you a picture of the western diamonback as it moved away from behind me. They can really blend into the surroundings and can be hard to see. I came across another diamondback and posted an image of that in the Fauna gallery. That one did rattle and let me know he was there.
Jim
Unfortunately this Finch has conjuctivitis, Jim. It is a common and increasingly serious concern for House Finches as the disease has spread through the populations of most of the Eastern United States. Obviously, it's ability to find food and avoid predation are almost completely hampered with no eye sight. It's fate looks pretty grim. This is one case where household bird feeders are actually doing more harm than good by concentrating these finch and increasing their exposure to the disease.
This is indeed a sad situation, I had no idea this was a problem. At first I was not going to post this bird encounter as I thought it might not be anything but I am glad I did. I put 3 finch feeders up in the palo verde trees out in the desert behind our porch several months ago. Since we live next to open desert the feeders always have finches on them. Yesterday was the first time I had noticed any odd bird behavior. Upon reading the replys I immediately went out and took down all 3 feeders and have cleaned them. However I did see another male house finch with 1 eye swollen shut but the other was open when I removed the feeders. Thank you all for the information on this and I will definetly be proactive on cleaning my feeders at any sign of this, no matter the effort.
I am concerned about this and was wonderfing if I keep on seeing diseased finchs should I just take the feeder down for a period of time?
Thanks,
Jim
Posted by David Graham on April 7, 2010 at 9:32 AM
Jim,
your finch does, indeed have "conjunctivitis" (inflammation of the conjunctiva), but we should recognize that there are two infectious diseases that can cause such inflammation. One is a bacterial infection (Mycoplasma infection); the other is avian pox, a virus infection, which, in the early stages of involvement can also cause inflammation of the eyelids and conjunctiva. Both diseases can be spread in the crowded and potentially contaminated environment of a bird feeding station. In either case, laboratory diagnostic procedures are necessary for a definitive diagnosis.
The pox virus, which can commonly affect any non-feathered region of the skin, cannot invade the skin on its own; it requires either a traumatic skin injury- a scrape or scratch (as from a wire or edge of a metal or plastic port in a feeder OR a bite from one of several possible blood-feeding flies) to permit infection by the virus from the contaminated surface or the insect's contaminated mouth parts. If the eyelid is the init5ial site of infection, there will be several days of early inflammation of the eyelid during which it is indistinguishable (to the naked-eyed observer) from the inflammation caused by Mycoplasma infection.
If either disease is observed in increasing numbers of birds visiting a particular feeding station there is no other reasonable course than to:
1. dismantle and thoroughly clean, wash, and disinfect the feeders and associated baths / water sources, and
2. replace as many as possible of the branches, twigs, and other wooden and natural perches in the immediate vicinity of the feeders.
David L.Graham, D.V.M, Ph.D. Dipl. A.C.V.P. (retired veterinary pathologist and wildlife disease researcher)
I did see another finch the other day with conjunctivitis but my 3 feeders are still down even though I have cleaned them. One of the problems is that I live in a 55+ condo complex with the eastern side facing around 60 acres of open desert. There are many, many feeders up outside people's condo's within the housing area. I am thinking about how I want to approach this problem. I could clean my feeders every week but the finch's could go right down to the neighbor's feeder and so forth. Right now I am going to keep my feeders down and start watching the finchs to see if I can get any idea how bad the infection is to the finches in my area.
Many thanks to David and all the others who have responded.
Jim
Great information. I saw a Goldfinch with the same condition at my feeder a couple of weeks ago. I see now that I have a some work to do since there are quite a few finches at the feeder.
Discussion
10 repliesAfter that encounter I watched this Finch (from the back porch) for the next 30 minutes. The finch finally did drop down to the ground in a crash type landing and was stumbling around like a blind bird.
One part of me wanted to go out and pick the bird up to help but the other decided to leave it be and so I did. After a minute on the ground rubbing it's eyes I did see one eye come open slightly and at that point it flew back up to crash land in a higher portion of the tree. I went inside to put my camera up, looked for the bird but never did see it again.
A couple of thoughts I had on this encounter was; #1)That I wanted to help this bird but ended up leaving it alone to work things out for itself and #2)Always look behind you before you start to back away.
Jim
I am concerned about this and was wonderfing if I keep on seeing diseased finchs should I just take the feeder down for a period of time?
Thanks,
Jim
your finch does, indeed have "conjunctivitis" (inflammation of the conjunctiva), but we should recognize that there are two infectious diseases that can cause such inflammation. One is a bacterial infection (Mycoplasma infection); the other is avian pox, a virus infection, which, in the early stages of involvement can also cause inflammation of the eyelids and conjunctiva. Both diseases can be spread in the crowded and potentially contaminated environment of a bird feeding station. In either case, laboratory diagnostic procedures are necessary for a definitive diagnosis.
The pox virus, which can commonly affect any non-feathered region of the skin, cannot invade the skin on its own; it requires either a traumatic skin injury- a scrape or scratch (as from a wire or edge of a metal or plastic port in a feeder OR a bite from one of several possible blood-feeding flies) to permit infection by the virus from the contaminated surface or the insect's contaminated mouth parts. If the eyelid is the init5ial site of infection, there will be several days of early inflammation of the eyelid during which it is indistinguishable (to the naked-eyed observer) from the inflammation caused by Mycoplasma infection.
If either disease is observed in increasing numbers of birds visiting a particular feeding station there is no other reasonable course than to:
1. dismantle and thoroughly clean, wash, and disinfect the feeders and associated baths / water sources, and
2. replace as many as possible of the branches, twigs, and other wooden and natural perches in the immediate vicinity of the feeders.
David L.Graham, D.V.M, Ph.D. Dipl. A.C.V.P. (retired veterinary pathologist and wildlife disease researcher)
Many thanks to David and all the others who have responded.
Jim
thanks to all!
especially David G, our resident vet pathologist
Sandy r