The Pine Siskin death toll continues to climb around here
(Bellevue-Eastgate). Up to about 15 now, maybe more, since all this started in mid
February, two of which when found were so near death they didn't even know I'd
picked them up at all and just squeezed them off putting them out of their
misery and unceremoniously just tossed them over the fence and the wild stream
bank along with all the rest and brushy compost. Sounds crude I know, but
in all honesty, it's more in keeping with the "...we commit this body to
the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust..." thing. There
have been 7 on the ground, 5 scattered around on the concrete deck in the
vicinity of the 'cleaned, disinfected, and CLOSED for the season' weather
protected platform feeder, one on the walk, one in the lawn, and who knows how
many more undetected in the other 90% mostly shrubbery, and I stopped
feeding all together three weeks ago before leaving for an 8-day absence,
cleaned the feeder, and have left it bare. Still they come and who knows how
many more died during those 8 days while away and out of State. 10-15 more
are down low now in the shrubbery and likely on the verge of death soon
including one immanent hobbling around on the ground with a droppy wing.

Up on the roof and while it was dry this past Sunday to clean up the
recent few week's shedded tree debris accumulation, mostly needles, cones, and
such, before this latest and current round of wind and rain, I found seven
or eight more up there!! All just colorful brown and yellow piles of
remains scattered about, mostly wings and tails and little piles of downy fluff.
Obviously something has been 'eating' them up there but don't know whether
it was a hawk (Cooper's most likely if so) or the crows. Since I seldom
sense the former stalking this location, I suspect the latter since they're
up there on the roof a lot and ever vigilant for anything opportunistic and
easy. So, I don't know what the source is for all the death and
destruction around here or why now ( _Salmonellosis - NYS Dept. of Environmental
Conservation_ (http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/63939.html) ). Pine Siskins
have certainly been around for a long long time now, mostly staying high in
the Douglas Firs but one by one by one over all these weeks, drop to the
shrubbery level and feeder, the first sign something's wrong, then to the
ground to scoot and hobble around when they can't even do the shrubbery
anymore until finally, they just keel over dead. All in all, this is the WORST
season I've ever personally witnessed with respect to Pine Siskins and
salmonellosis. Sad, and nothing more I can do about it other than just
helplessly watch this tragedy unfold.

When all is finally said and done, I suspect the death toll will reach
25-35 just here that I will know of, not counting all the rest that maybe
disappeared and quietly died in the shrubbery, not to mention in the neighbors
yards or their roofs, the neighborhood, and all over the Puget Sound
lowlands for that matter, countless hundreds or thousands I suspect. If you've
got Pine Siskins attending your feeders now, it's probably already too late
despite how happy and healthy they may now appear. I never get Pine
Siskins at my feeders normally, and when one or two do alight while all the rest
stay up high and far far away, it's those ones likely already weakened
even when they don't appear so at first or even for the first week or two, the
end game is always the same. Those that linger and never seem to leave
are just harbingers of trouble that escalates as time and continued feeding
goes on.

It's already far too late for this season's batch and likely those
countless hundreds or thousands, even if EVERYONE throughout western Washington
collectively stopped feeding, cleaned, disinfected, and closed their seed
feeders right this instant. If no one fed birds at all or could at least
filter out Pine Siskins, then it might be quite interesting to see what might
happen. If Pine Siskins continued to drop out of the tree tops and drop
dead all over the place, then the salmonellosis source is more likely
up-stairs and not down, perhaps swarms contaminating the very tree tops and
whatever it is up there they are anchored too, feeding on in masses, and leaving
salmonella fecal waste contamination behind to further spread infection to
all. Then, it becomes more of a 'natural' thing leading to a perhaps
natural cyclical culling within the species and has little or nothing to do with
the bird feeding enthusiasts below. Could be other factors as well or a
combination of such. No matter how bad it gets, there will always be
survivors, survivors that are perhaps stronger and perhaps develop an even better
resistance to infection to pass on to future generations. Mysteriously,
nature just kind of works that way and there will always be Pine Siskins.

Just my 2-cents worth, I know nothing.

Richard Rowlett
Bellevue (Eastgate), WA