Yesterday a Stellar Jay came to the feeder behind my office in Parkland
(south side of Tacoma) for peanuts and to my horror it has the same type of
growth on it's feet as a Stellar visiting my home deck feeders last year in
Fircrest (west side of Tacoma). It appears as a white/gray pearly looking
lumpy stuff that when I first saw the bird, I thought it had stepped in
something, but the Stellar came almost daily for a month or so and the
growth progressed until toward the end of the time it appeared the stuff had
spread to both feet, up the legs into the undertail coverts and it had lost
most of its tail feathers. The growth splayed out the toes and stiffened
the feet until the bird could no longer perch even on the deck rail and it
would land on the deck surface and eat there. It upset me to not know what
was wrong or anything to do about it. Now that I've seen another Stellar
Jay with the same stuff a year later 12 miles away I'm wondering if it's
some sort of a communicable disease spread among Stellar Jays. I haven't
seen any other species with this stuff. Can anyone tell me what this is?
Is it seen elsewhere and on other birds?

Sharon Ross
Tacoma, WA
mailto; ROSSS at DSHS.WA.GOV