This is an explanation of how my 10 minute chore of filling the bird feeders before our next snow event turned into a two hour chore! We have had about 30 snow events this winter so the filling of feeders has kept me busy. Since working at the wildlife rehabilitation center, I have become even more diligent in my feeding and observation of my backyard critters and birds.
I filled up my old green plastic juice pitcher with seed and trudged through the snow to the backyard birdfeeders. The first thing I noticed this afternoon was a red fluffy feathered finch on the ground. Realizing quickly he wasn't startled by me I assumed he was dead so I went to pick him up. Just when I was going to pick up his frozen lifeless little self, he flew straight up in the air about 6 feet but plopped right back down. He appeared fairly healthy so I assumed he was attacked by another bird at the feeder and had a damaged a wing. I made another attempt to pick him up but just when I got close enough, POP, straight up in the air again! He still did not seem quite right so I knew I had to get him in a nice warm box and to the wildlife center to be checked out. I am no expert so getting him looked at by someone qualified was my goal. I made two attempts throwing a light towel over him but my aim was not stellar! Finally covered him up, picked him up and got him into his warm box! This was just another debacle where if my neighbors were watching they would have thought once again, "she's really lost it this time" and they wouldn't mean the bird!
He didn't make a peep on the drive but the poor little things are usually too scared to make a fuss. Once I got him out there and was removing him from the box I thought I'd lost him since we pulled almost the whole towel out before he came out of the very last corner of it. Now, I would have been more than a little embarrassed having run all the way out there not realizing I lost the little guy! Long story short, he has conjunctivitis. It can be deadly in birds, not necessarily from the eye being so infected, crusted over and swollen, but from the inability to find food sources and the inability to flee from predators because of the near blindness. This was the only reason I was able to catch him. He couldn't see me until I was right on top of him. He will get medication and hopefully will be able to be set free but he has an extremely bad case. With the upcoming major snow event, it would have been unlikely he would have survived.
What to do? Having food, seed and water available to our feathered friends is not enough! The feeders need to be taken down and cleaned with a 10% bleach solution often and it needs to be done IMMEDIATELY when you find a bird suffering from conjunctivitis. It spreads from bird to bird. Clean and rake up used and moldy seeds under the feeder as often as possible. I wish I had gotten a picture of my little friend. He already had a girlfriend awaiting him at the center who has the same eye problem and came in not more than five minutes before my guy. It is so sad they probably can't even see one another. Maybe by Valentine's Day she will be able to see his handsome red feathers! Let there be love at the wildlife center!
Grab a bucket of bleach and go clean those feeders! See how sparkly mine are! Ready for the snow again, birdies, ready for the snow!
