Hi Tweets,
In the last two days we found 4 dead crows on our property. These
birds showed no apparent sign of injury. We actually saw one of them die,
and another one that, by its extremely lethargic behavior, seemed near
death. We called the dead bird hotline and were directed to our Jefferson
County Environmental Health department. We took the two birds that we knew
were freshly dead to them today and they are going to swab and send the
cultures to the lab at WSU. They were not sure if WSU would send the
results back to them, but if they do, we requested that they send them to us
as well. Apparently there have been no West Nile Virus cases in Western
WA, but it seems so odd that all of a sudden we had dead crows all over the
place. We don't use pesticides or fertilizers in our garden and we have
not noticed any other dead birds lately. The only other dead birds we have
had, have been the result of window kills.

I don't want to assume it is West Nile Virus, but does anyone have any
suggestions for what might cause something like this?

We live in Jefferson County on Squamish Harbor, which is the very northern
part of Hood Canal.


Carolyn Eagan