Salmonella is killing Houston’s birds
Taking down your feeder for a thorough cleaning may help stop spread of the bacteria
Billions of migratory birds, such as warblers, tanagers and orioles, are headed our way from Latin American winter homes in one of the world’s most spectacular bird migrations. But they could arrive as an avian epidemic of salmonella is causing widespread bird mortality.
The disease began spreading as hordes of pine siskins, staying here for the winter, crowded around bird feeders and birdbaths.
Siskins contracted salmonella from bird feeders that hadn’t been routinely cleaned during the winter. When one bird contracted salmonella, it infected other birds, which spread the disease throughout backyard bird feeders. That caused the deaths of more siskins along with other birds, such as goldfinches and robins.
People finding dead birds in their yard may attribute the mortality to winter storm Uri, but the freeze didn’t kill birds. Instead, the wholesale die-off of birds came from unsanitary, disease-laden bird feeders.
To stop the spread of salmonella, remove bird feeders from your yard.
Birds will find plenty of natural foods among neighborhood trees and in forested parks. And they’ll spread out, meaning one sick bird is less likely to infect a crowded flock.
Next, scrub bird feeders and birdbaths with a mild solution of bleach. Then rinse both with fresh water and let them dry in the sun. Do not reinstall the feeders or birdbaths for a couple of weeks, to keep flocks of birds dispersed while the salmonella outbreak subsides.
Not being able to enjoy birds at our feeders is heart-wrenching — especially while we’re home during our own pandemic. One of the few joys we have is watching birds in our yard.
But what’s more heart-wrenching is finding a sick bird, one after another, in the yard. The diseased bird is unable to fly, barely
able to move and clinging to life.
Once we can reinstall feeders, let’s clean them every couple of weeks to avoid another catastrophic spread of salmonella.
Meanwhile, Neotropcial songbirds are coming. It’s an exhausting journey for the birds, traveling from places like Costa Rica and Ecuador. They’ll gather at the Yucatán Peninsula and launch a 600-mile nonstop journey across the Gulf of Mexico to
get to our shores and backyards.
And we don’t want gorgeous migratory birds, such as Baltimore orioles and rose-breasted grosbeaks, to die at our bird feeders after traveling thousands of miles to get here.