Their eyes are swollen and crusted over with discharge. Some have even exhibited strange neurological problems.
That’s the state of the sick and dying songbirds the Indiana Department of Natural Resources has found in recent weeks. The symptoms seem to be part of an unidentified illness that first flared up near Washington D.C. around late May – and that has since crept across the eastern U.S.
It’s hit Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, among others. In Indiana, afflicted birds have been spotted in five counties so far: Monroe, Clark, Jefferson, LaGrange and Lake.
“Several species are being affected,” Allisyn-Marie Gillet, a DNR ornithologist, said in a news release on Tuesday, “including blue jay, American robin, common grackle, Northern cardinal, European starling, and a few others.”
More: Kentucky officials need your help to record unexplained bird deaths
DNR has snagged samples from several sick birds. All of them tested negative for avian flu and the West Nile virus, the release stated. More lab results are pending.
Until officials pinpoint the problem, they want residents to take down their bird feeders to keep the illness from spreading. They also recommend cleaning your feeders with a 10-percent bleach solution and keeping pets away from afflicted birds. You should also report any sick wildlife to the DNR’s website and avoid handling the birds altogether. If you do have to touch them for some reason, wear gloves.
A tie to cicadas?
As of now, no one knows the answer. But one possible suspect is being investigated: Brood X cicadas.
Brian Evans, an ornithologist with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in Washington D.C., told NPR the mystery illness first flared up around the time cicadas started climbing from the dirt. Some areas reporting sick birds also have high cicada populations.
He wondered if the birds were getting sick after scarfing cicadas that had been sprayed with insecticide. Or maybe, he said, a fungus found in the little red-eyed bugs was to blame.
Brood X: Some in Tri-State haven't seen any cicadas. Others are buried in them.
Called Massospora cicadina, the psychedelic-infused fungus eats at cicadas’ insides until their abdomens crack, fall off, and get replaced with a mass of white spores.
It can plague both males and females, but the former gets the brunt of it. Massospora causes them to behave like a female and male simultaneously, helping them attract as many mates as they can. Since half their bodies are gone, they can’t reproduce – but they can spread the fungus to more partners.
Last month, however, a cicada expert told the Courier & Press that birds and other animals usually avoid eating fungus-riddled cicadas.
A tie to the periodical insects would actually be good news, Evans said. The illness would disappear as soon as the cicadas did – which should be soon – and likely wouldn’t resurface for another 17 years.
As of now, though, that’s just a hypothesis. Another wildlife expert told NPR he fielded reports of stricken birds as early as April 11 – well before the cicadas hit the scene.
“There's a lot of different ideas … circulating regarding what might be causing this event,” Evans said.
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