Avian Influenza in Wild Birds

[Heym SR20]

Up here on the Forth Estuary we have a major outbreak of Avian Flu in wild birds. Notably amongst the Gannets on Bass rock as well as many other seabirds.

Lots of dead seabirds floating on the sea and being washed up on beaches.

Most of the birds have now fledged and populations will be moving back out to sea in the coming months to be replaced with over wintering wild fowl. Does any body know if geese and ducks up in Iceland and Northern Europe are infected and whether this will the Wildfowling season.

Rice breast disease is already an issue - shot half a dozen duck with this last year. But must admit not overly keen on H5N1 virus and being directly exposed to it.

 

[McKenzie]

Helpfully my GWP spotted an ailing gannet a 100m out from North Berwick a couple of weeks ago & swam out to get it, presenting me with a very indignant & ****ed off gannet, much to the horror of some of the onlookers. I held it securely, checking it over & giving it time to recover before releasing it again. It was at that point I was advised about the bird flu outbreak so straight home for a shower.

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

Its rife all over, word is there are 100’s of birds dead on the east anglian coastal nature reserves

 

[thistledeyke]

Cases are still being reported on poultry farms mainly in the south, resulting in resticted zones around the area. Latest on the 21st is in Devon.

 

[Covert]

Also very prominent in N America at the moment.
Not a usual occurrence in the warmer months.

 

[User00053]

Do we know if it has had a impact on finches and the tit family as used to have good numbers here, but hardly saw a bullfinch, this spring hardly see a Greenfinch or goldie, and only an odd blue tit. Then yesterday in garden two bullfinches!

 

[Heym SR20]

We have probably created a perfect storm. Massive over fishing has collapsed fish stocks. Excess of nutrients and large amounts of sewerage going down all the rivers into the estuaries then causing toxic algal blooms further depleting fish stocks. Dredging of the River Tees to make way for a large freeport with all the toxic chemicals previously buried and now exposed and being spread over the seabed. Large windfarms buing built offshore, again lots of dredging around all the footings uncovering god knows what - hundreds of thousands of tonnes of ammunition etc was all dumped off shore.

Net result is the sea birds all in poor condition before they congregate and then the H5N1 takes hold they are unable to resist and populations collapse.

Hopefully enough of a population will remain allowing them to recover in time.

However it looks like the sea gulls are not that effected and will dominate for a long time. They absolutely hammer young pufflings etc.

Whether or not you believe in climate change, or Gods wrath or whatever, it is pretty clear as a species we are crapping in our own beds.

 

[John Wild]

I’m up in Montrose and there are more and more everyday here, gannets, guillis, and turns mainly with a few kittiwakes appearing now. One gul I think

 

[JTO]

Do we know if it has had a impact on finches and the tit family as used to have good numbers here, but hardly saw a bullfinch, this spring hardly see a Greenfinch or goldie, and only an odd blue tit. Then yesterday in garden two bullfinches!

Doesn't seem to affect magpies!

 

[foxhunter]

Doesn't seem to affect magpies!

Or any corvid !

 

[Kentish]

Whether or not you believe in climate change, or Gods wrath or whatever, it is pretty clear as a species we are crapping in our own beds.

Not strictly related but there are teams of forestry workers out there right now felling all the dead ash in the woods behind our house. It's going to be unrecognisable

 

[Sharpie]

Actually it does, at least to me, seem to have knocked off the magpies too. Horrible things. Used to wake up to the blackbirds shortly before dawn.

Very little dawn chorus left, but I am in a hotspot. The littler things are still around, but not in the quantities I am used to. Still quite a few finches frequenting my back garden, at this time of the year I don't feed them, just put out water, and dust baths for them. The seem to appreciate it.

Sort of started alerting peeps to this, in an earlier post, here. Avian Influenza. Now in a protection Zone (East Sussex)

Going up to my dad's country place, a few miles due East of Alnmouth in September. I wonder what will be left. The Farnes are already devastated. Doesn't seem to get much news coverage. What's to be done ? Frankly very little in the wild.

 

[Bugsy]

Lots of dead seabirds being picked up over here on the Kintyre peninsula at the moment . Quite sad as I’m a big fan of the Gannets , seagulls are just vermin to me .

 

[hogey]

Actually it does, at least to me, seem to have knocked off the magpies too. Horrible things. Used to wake up to the blackbirds shortly before dawn.

Very little dawn chorus left, but I am in a hotspot. The littler things are still around, but not in the quantities I am used to. Still quite a few finches frequenting my back garden, at this time of the year I don't feed them, just put out water, and dust baths for them. The seem to appreciate it.

Sort of started alerting peeps to this, in an earlier post, here. Avian Influenza. Now in a protection Zone (East Sussex)

Going up to my dad's country place, a few miles due East of Alnmouth in September. I wonder what will be left. The Farnes are already devastated. Doesn't seem to get much news coverage. What's to be done ? Frankly very little in the wild.

Do you not meen due west from Alnmouth .Due east is the North Sea is it not ?

 

[timbrayford]

Plenty of dead seabirds in and around The Solent, but surely as this disease is spread around by migrating birds its something that we have to learn to live with and forget about restrictions that amount to little more than a PR stunt?

 

[bottletopbill]

Just like the great storm that hit Sevenoaks and surrounding area

 

[Klenchblaize]

This approach isn’t working either:

K

 

[Heym SR20]

It looks like birdflu is jumping into other species. Not quite sure if I want to go out on the foreshore in East Lothian close to Bass Rock where there has been a major outbreak

Dolphin and porpoise infected with bird flu in first documented cases

The infections – detected two continents apart – are the latest in an ‘unprecedented’ season of the deadly H5N1 avian flu

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[levigsp]

Well there has been no sign here in caithness for months. We lost geese crows buzzards and countless sea birds early in the year. But the geese have replaced the lost with young and all are healthy. The worst effected were sandwich terns, black headed gulls and buzzards.

 

[Rasputin]

My wildfowling club is taking part on an early warning scheme where we are sending shot birds off to the powers at be for analysis. Could be interesting findings.