Care and Safety

There Is a Sick Bird at My Feeder

Most people's instinct is to catch the bird and help it. That is usually the wrong first move. Here is the order the decisions should actually go in.

Start by working out what you are actually looking at, because the right response is different for a diseased bird, an injured one, a stunned one and a healthy fledgling. Then, in almost every case, the correct first action is a phone call rather than a rescue.

Do not chase or grab the bird. Handling a wild bird is genuinely dangerous to it: the stress alone can kill a weakened animal, and a bird that flies off in a panic and lands somewhere worse is not a bird you have helped. Licensed wildlife rehabilitators exist for this, they are usually easy to find, and they will tell you whether intervention is warranted.

This page covers how to read the signs, how to reach a rehabilitator quickly, how to handle a bird safely if you are told to, and when a sick bird means your feeders need to come down.

First, decide what you are seeing#

The most common mistake by a wide margin is rescuing a healthy fledgling. Young birds leave the nest before they can fly well and spend days on the ground being fed by their parents. A short-tailed bird hopping about and calling loudly is doing exactly what it should. Move it out of a road or away from a cat if you must, then leave.

The second most common is confusing a window strike with disease. A bird that hit glass often sits stunned for 15 to 60 minutes and then flies off. Shade it, keep cats away and watch from a distance rather than picking it up. Prevention is covered in preventing window strikes.

Call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator#

A rehabilitator is a person licensed by the state, and often federally, to receive and treat wild animals. Most native birds in the United States are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which means keeping or treating one without a permit is illegal even with good intentions.

Three reliable routes to a name:

• Your state wildlife or natural resources agency. Most publish a searchable list of licensed rehabilitators by county.
• A local Audubon chapter or nature center. They usually know who in the area takes songbirds and who is currently accepting them.
• A veterinary clinic. Small animal clinics generally cannot treat wildlife themselves but often keep a referral number.

Call before you go anywhere. Rehabilitators specialize, they have capacity limits, and some cannot take certain species. Describe the bird's species if you know it, its behavior, whether there is visible injury, and how many birds are affected.

If nobody answers and the bird is not in immediate danger, leave it where it is. A sick bird in a quiet corner of a yard is better off than a sick bird in a shoebox in a car.

If you do have to handle a bird#

Only when a rehabilitator has told you to, or when the bird is in immediate danger from traffic, a cat or a dog.

1. Put on gloves. Disposable or rubber. A frightened bird bites and scratches, and some feeder diseases transmit to people.
2. Approach from behind and cover the bird gently with a towel, wrapping the wings against the body. Do not squeeze the chest; birds breathe by moving the chest wall.
3. Place it in a ventilated cardboard box lined with paper towel, not a wire cage, which damages feathers.
4. Close the box and put it somewhere dark, quiet and warm. Darkness is the single most calming thing you can provide.
5. Do not offer food or water. Forcing fluid into a bird can drown it, and the wrong food does real harm.
6. Do not check on it repeatedly. Every look is another stress event.
7. Transport it as soon as the rehabilitator can take it, with the car quiet and the radio off.
8. Wash your hands thoroughly, and disinfect the towel or discard it.

Shutting the feeders down#

If disease is the likely explanation, the yard has to close for a while. The sequence is the same regardless of which disease it turns out to be.

• Take down every seed feeder, suet feeder and bird bath. Leaving one up concentrates the flock onto it.
• Bag the seed for the trash rather than returning it to your storage bin.
• Rake and bag the hull layer and spilled seed under each feeder. Ground-feeding birds are eating there, and that is where the contamination sits.
• Scrub, disinfect with 1 part household bleach to 9 parts water for about 10 minutes, rinse thoroughly and dry completely, following how to clean a bird feeder.
• Leave the yard empty for about two weeks, and longer if birds are still turning up sick.
• Store the clean feeders indoors rather than hanging them empty.
• Tell the neighbors, so the flock does not just relocate and come back.

Feeders are a supplement, not a food supply the birds depend on, so a two week gap does no harm. That reasoning is set out in do birds become dependent on feeders, and the full list of legitimate reasons to pause is in when to take your feeders down.

Handling a dead bird#

Wear gloves, or invert a plastic bag over your hand and use it as a glove. Double-bag the carcass and put it in the household trash. Wash your hands afterward with soap and water.

Before you dispose of several, check whether your state wildlife agency wants a report. Agencies collect information on songbird die-offs, and groups of dead birds, dead raptors or dead waterfowl are specifically worth reporting because of avian influenza surveillance. Do not handle waterfowl or raptor carcasses yourself; call instead.

Keep pets away from carcasses and from the ground below the feeders. A cat that catches a weakened bird can pick up bacteria and carry them into the house.

Protecting yourself and your household#

The realistic risks at a feeder are bacterial rather than exotic. Salmonella is the one that matters most, and it moves by hand to mouth contact after touching a feeder, a carcass or contaminated soil.

Wear gloves for any feeder or carcass handling. Wash hands with soap and water afterward, not just sanitizer. Clean feeders outdoors or in a utility sink rather than the kitchen. Keep children out of the area under the feeders during an outbreak, and keep the seed spill cleared so there is less for anyone to encounter.

The decision, in short#

• No injury, fluffed and lethargic: feeders down, call a rehabilitator, clean everything.
• Crusted or swollen eyes: feeders down one to two weeks, clean, reconsider the feeder design.
• Stunned under a window: leave it, shade it, watch for an hour.
• Cat-caught: rehabilitator, urgently, even if it looks unhurt.
• Short-tailed and noisy with parents nearby: do nothing.
• Two or more affected, or any dead birds: shut the yard down and check whether your state agency wants a report.

When you do rehang, come back smaller: less seed per fill, feeders spread further apart, and a shorter cleaning interval than before. The spacing argument is in how many feeders and how far apart, and the timing in how often to clean bird feeders.