Been a long time putting this on the site, probably as it was a dreadful time for the finches but I guess it needs to be added and we were one of the first to highlight the problem.
Back in June/July I was beginning to notice young finches be it Gold, Chaff, and Green being well out of it, puffed up, slow to respond and with a caking, for want of a better word, around the beak and then eventually dying.
I say eventually as it took a few days and you feel so helpless, seems cruel doesn’t it when if like me you’ve built up an area for them with trees, bushes, water, feeding stations and with top counts of 35 plus goldfinches and more for greenfinches to have them decimated over a short period, and it’s only now in October that I think we’re through it, last death was 2 weeks ago.
Initially when I rang Defra they hadn’t heard of other cases, so I asked the listeners to BBC Hereford and Worcester and sure enough people from both counties and beyond were ringing in and I think for us all it was a relief to know it wasn’t just us and something we were doing wrong, some called Defra, it then made local newspapers and then National. We had a problem, a form of Salmonella apparantly, advice was basic hygiene, clean areas, wash hands, and wear gloves, and still we had to watch them die.
All in all, the death count (and these are the ones I witnessed), came to 28 birds.
I hope we never see that again.
