It's supposedly due to a salmonella virus that's retained in excrement and
passed around as they flock closely and walk around in it. Wooden feeders,
especially, need to be cleaned weekly (we use a very dilute bleach
solution, a cup or so to a half gallon, and rinse them well). Burying
is a good idea since the virus gets passed on if the carcass is eaten by a
raptor or a pet. In B.C. they say that every few years they get outbreaks.

Jack Kintner kintner at nas.com Blaine

At 02:41 PM 3/12/01 -0500, you wrote:

>Return-Path: <Kakadua at aol.com>
>Received: from web46.aolmail.aol.com (web46.aolmail.aol.com
>[205.188.161.7]) by air-id05.mx.aol.com (v77_r1.21) with ESMTP; Mon, 12
>Mar 2001 10:59:13 -0500
>Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 10:59:14 EST
>From: Kakadua at aol.com
>Subject:pine siskin mortality
>To: <TWEETERS at u.washingon.edu>
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>X-Mailer: Unknown (No Version)
>Message-ID: <e8.11a3f665.27de4c51 at aol.com>
>
>I had the pleasure of pine siskins stopping by my feeders this last month.
>Unfortunately, I've buried about 6 of them. Does anyone know why the
>mortality rate is so high for these little guys? I'm in the
>Carnation/Duvall area.