I just met Sweetie late Monday morning, don't know gender or age but for my purposes I think Sweetie was a girl. She was sitting on the bird feeder next to the driveway while Randy and I were out front waiting for the phone line repair guy to show up and didn't even seem to be bothered by our being so close to her. It did look like she was having a problem eating and her feathers were very fluffed up for such a warm day so I wondered if she was ill. But she flew off in a couple of minutes and we went on about our day. She reappeared an hour or so later on the hook that holds one of the suet blocks, pecked at the suet but couldn't seem to swallow anything. When I came back out the front door she flew to the shelf on the Passionflower vine trellis. I took a small tray of water to her and she never flinched when I placed it right next to her. She flew to the ground by the orange zinnias, standing there for a few minutes then hopped through the plant to the other side. I wandered around the yard...keeping an eye on her and standing guard in case any of the feral cats that roam our neighborhood should happen to come calling. If she was dying I certain wasn't going to let it be in the mouth of a D*** cat! I sat on the ground next to her and started running my finger from her head down her back. She twitched a little but didn't move away, that's when I realized that she had a hole in her head right between the eyes. I wondered if I should try taking her to a vet but a little voice in my head told me there wasn't time. We sat there for several minutes, me stroking her head and back and talking to her and her twitching. My knee started hurting so I had to get up and wander around a bit. A few minutes later I found her laying on her right side, right wing folded up behind her back, she was not breathing but her body was twitching more than before. I talked to her about flying away where she wouldn't be hurt again and thanked her for allowing me to be with her at the end. She stopped twitching...but then both her wings spread open, her tail feathers spread apart as they do when a bird lifts off in flight....then they folded together again and she was still. I told her goodbye with tears running down my cheeks. I wrapped her in a piece of cotton fabric and we buried her in the garden between the Lemon Verbena and the Plumbago. Hope she likes her resting spot.
Poor little thing. I'm glad you were with her at the end though Toni so that she didn't have to die alone. I'm sure she was grateful for your company at the end and that she'll be at peace now lying between your Lemon Verbena and the Plumbago.
Toni Ahhhhh that's so sad. I think it was a female house Finch though. They sort of look like Sparrows but with more streaking on it's breast. Sparrows do not eat suet, but finch's do. Finch's are more saceptable to a fungal disease that causes them to get sick and die. The symptoms you described sounds like what has happened to a few of our house finchs. It is sad to see. They come and sit on or in the feeder and are all fluffed up with their eyes closed. They do not usually eat much when they are so sick and have a hard time flying. I usually don't see them die but find them dead on the ground around our home. I have read that they pick it up from not having your feeder clean enough. They say to use bleach water to clean the wood and let it dry. But my feeders is used constantly and is stationary that it is hard for me to clean it out like that. The fungus forms from having wet or damp seed in the feeder for to long of a time. When it rains I try and keep any wet seeds cleaned and scrapped out of the feeder as soon as possible. Other birds can handle the fungus ok but not the house Finch's.
It was definitely a female House Sparrow, just found her photo on the Cornell Labs birding website. We very, very seldom have Finches since we are not in their common habitat area. The sparrows sometimes fight with the Starlings and Red-winged Blackbirds for possession of the suet feeders during cool weather and if they lose possession they are on the ground picking up the seeds the big birds drop. Great clean up crew along with the Doves.
