Feeding birds can kill them

We received a lovely Christmas present from a thoughtful relative: a subscription to the BBC Wildlife magazine. Straight in the first issue we learnt that, disturbingly, by feeding birds we may kill them!

A pathogen called trichomonosis harms birds and in particular greenfinches. If birdfeeders aren’t cleaned regularly, the pathogen can keep on infecting birds. Learning this sad fact we immediately disinfected our bird feeders as instructed by the author of the article. We immersed the feeders in bleachy water for half an hour. Then we rinsed them and filled them with bird food.

Although we are not visited by greenfinches, we wanted to make sure that birds benefit from being fed, instead of getting harmed!