We’ve had this bird feeder in active use for a couple of years now; Tom made a place for it to hang on the corner of the chicken coop, so that any fallen seed would get eaten by our chickens rather than sprouting and making more work for me. We have just been delighted by the activity that the feeder has brought to our yard. At dawn, when I go outside to let the chickens out of their run, I also fill the feeder. All the neighborhood birds are in the nearby oak and pine trees, waiting for me. They watch me fill the feeder, and then they descend, even though I am right there working in the chicken coop. I guess they are used to me now!
There seems to be a hierarchy of birds in the order they feed; the house finches are often first, followed by the goldfinches, and then later on I notice chickadees and titmice getting taking a turn. Often times, a row of birds will sit on the fence that borders the chicken run. They chatter and sing and it’s a wonderful sound throughout the morning. The feeder is usually empty by early afternoon, with a stray bird visiting to get the last few seeds.
All of the sparrows, the migratory golden-crowned, white-crowned, and song sparrows, tend to forage on the fallen seeds below, ducking and weaving around the chickens. This morning I noticed a Bewick’s wren (usually an insect-eater) at the feeder. We’ve also had pine siskins in droves all winter. They are harder to spot because they look a lot like finches, and in fact, they are in the finch family.
In late January, we had two separate instances of a solitary pine siskin resting in our pots. Both times, the birds looked cold - feathers puffed up, a slight shivering or shaking in their bodies, breathing hard, and not at all afraid of us coming close. We thought they were baby birds fledging and did not want to intervene. The bird above looked especially cold, and both Tom and I went by it at separate times, wondering if we should move it into the sun. But we each decided, individually, to leave it alone. It was right by our back door so we were going past it all day. Eventually, Tom went out to check on it and found it dead. We were both so mad at ourselves at the time because we could have easily moved it into the sun. We thought it was our fault that the bird had died. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do when you see an animal in distress.
But, it turns out, this was part of a much bigger problem that neither of us knew about until this past week. Apparently, there has been a Salmonella outbreak here this winter, which is affecting all members of the finch family, but especially pine siskins. Bird feeders and common gathering areas are to blame. The bacteria gets into the feces of the birds, and can then be spread easily near where the birds congregate. The advice from the California Department of Fish and Game is to take down any bird feeders and allow the congregation to stop. I want to comply, but there are an awful lot of birds who depend on our feeder right now, and I’m not sure taking it down is in their best interest.
So yesterday, I went to our local nature store (East Bay Nature), the place where I get my seed mix for the feeder, and asked the owner (Joanie Smith) what she thought. She said this information is not new, the disease and decline of finches has been going on for quite some time (and in fact we never get American goldfinches anymore like we used to, but that’s a discussion for another time and is related to climate change). However she feels that it’s not a good idea to take down the feeder now, since the pine siskins are migratory and are leaving for their summer breeding grounds (Canada), and there are so many other birds who are depending on the seed now.
Speaking of the migration of siskins, this year has seen an especially large one, called an irruption. What’s especially notable about this year’s irruption is that the birds migrated at night. Migration at night is a process that is still not fully understood; a study published in PNAS a couple of years ago found that migratory birds have something in their eyes called cyrptochromes which have evolved a mechanism which enhances their ability to respond to light, which enables them to sense and respond to magnetic fields. Pretty cool.
You might be wondering, as I have been, if any of these infected droppings have affected our chickens. The thing is, chickens live with Salmonella all the time, as we humans do. Our systems are usually able to handle and process and remove any of this bacteria from our systems. My flock seems healthy and well, laying eggs like crazy, eating and moving about as normal, so I do not think they are ill. Meanwhile we are still eating their eggs regularly. It’s also likely that, since we haven’t seen a sick or dead bird for over a month, this disease has passed on and away from here. However I will take precautions: I will be extra diligent about cleaning the bird feeder for a while, and we will cook all eggs before we eat them.