Bad news for birds

There was a sad story on the radio this morning - a new parasite is apparently killing many birds, particularly greenfinches and chaffinches. It causes lesions which prevent the birds from swallowing properly and so they end up starving :( . It's spread through saliva, so it's important to clean out bird tables etc regularly. Off the give everything an extra scrub! Come to think of it, I've seen very few chaffinches this year, whereas they've been one of the commonest birds around in previous years.

 

We had two or three Chaffinches through the Winter, Spring and early Summer but they have moved away recently. In fact most of the usual visitors are missing at the moment.
Let's hope this disease dies out in the winter and doesn't do any long term harm, they had it bad enough with the exceptional cold last winter.:(

 

I found that. This an helpful article.

 

Oh I hope that doesn't take a grip Clara Lou. Poor birds.

Jings RedRose, I never knew birds could have so many problems.

 

thank you for the warning - did not know about this! where on earth do these dreadful diseases start!

 

Do not mention it :o

 

As far as I know the European Swallows and Martins aren't suffering with the Mite problem that the American Purple Martins are and I hope they don't.

Incidently I think we have only ever had one record of a Purple Martin in the UK in 2004.