Hi Sharon and Tweeters,

A post graduate student at the UW, who studies crows, gave a talk to ELWAS Audubon last month about crows and someone asked him about a similar situation in crows and he said it was likely to be avian pox.

Kathy

Kathy Andrich
Roosting in Renton
kjandrich at netscape.net

"Ross, Sharon" <ROSSS at dshs.wa.gov> wrote:

>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
>
>
>

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