Last month I wrote a bit about pets and wildlife, and there’s no doubt that some pets, some of the time, can be a threat to the animals and birds that share our space. But there are many other threats besides, to do with how we live and how we human beings plan our environment. There’s no escaping the huge numbers of creature killed on our roads, for example - on a short journey of no more than ten miles recently, I counted more than twenty roadkill pheasants before I gave up. Pheasants are not a native bird, and estimates of the numbers released by shoots etc each year vary between 35 and 50 million birds - so that’s another way in which human activity impacts on our wild environment. Roadkill attracts magpies and crows (and red kites and buzzards), and is one factor contributing to the probably artificially high number of magpies. So the trail goes on . . .
As a regular litter-picker, I am perhaps more aware than most of the huge amount of litter simply dropped on the streets of the average town, however many bins there are available. Pigeons, gulls and many other birds find food among the rubbish, as do, when you’re not looking, mice, rats and urban foxes. But litter is also dangerous: broken glass, and tins mangled by mowers when left on urban grass or in country fields, are two obvious examples. But there are others: I was told not long ago of a hedgehog attracted by the yoghurt in a plastic pot, that died because, having got in, it couldn’t get out, because its prickles caught against the sides of the pot. Hedgehogs, by the way, should never be given milk - it is quite harmful to them.
Smokers seem routinely to feel that it’s OK simply to drop their cigarettes where they’ve been smoking. It isn’t. It’s messy and makes our streets unsightly (and don’t even get me started on chewing gum), but what’s dropped also contains poisonous chemicals.
But, as I’ve written before, even we kind people who provide food in our gardens for local birds can be a cause of harm. Most garden birds would, away from our towns, be woodland species; their natural behaviour is to find sources of food, make the most of it while it lasts, and then move on. In our gardens, though, the food source never runs out - we keep refilling the feeders. And sometimes we get a bit competitive, not wanting “our” garden birds to decamp to the garden of our neighbour down the road.
But because that means birds are visiting the same place more often than they would in the wild, diseases like trichomonosis (sometimes called “fat finch disease”, though it seems to have migrated to garden birds from urban pigeons) and salmonella can be spread at feeders and birdbaths. If you see a bird that is lethargic, seems larger and more puffed up than normal, hanging around looking sad and not feeding, that’s probably a case of this horrible fatal disease. Greenfinches seem particularly susceptible. It’s best then probably to remove all feeders for a time and make sure the whole area is sterilized. Infected birds vomit up food that contains the parasite. In general, a good thorough and regular clean of everything is enough, but you can buy antiseptic products too.
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