For the birds
This summer was the first reported death in Travis County from West Nile Virus. We live in a particularly mosquito-y neighborhood. Last month I walked into the back yard at dusk. In the space of 90 seconds I had 13 mosquito bites.
Last night around midnight I let the dogs out and saw something moving around over by a bag of old dog food we have by the garage and keep forgetting to throw away. I eased closer and saw that it was a bird. Odd, I thought, to see a bird out and eating at night, but maybe he just had the munchies. Well, he ended up staying around all night long, eventually camping out on the back steps and occasionally nibbling on a bug. He didn’t really fly, he just hopped around occasionally. He let me get within 2 feet of him with a camera. Needless to say, something wasn’t right with him. It finally dawned on me that he might have West Nile. Looking up the virus on the Department of Health’s web page, it says they’re particularly interested in blue jays who are found dead.
This morning he was gone. I don’t know if he wandered off to die. Hub searched the yard and didn’t find anything. We’ll have to keep an eye out for him. All I know is that I’m not going out at dusk without a liberal slathering of Deet. My vet said he thinks that infected birds have symptoms such as muddy thinking and inability to fly. Sounds like our guy.
August 12th, 2003 at 8:22 pm
YIKES! We live in an area that the EPA sprays for mosquitos. I sure wish they would warn me first so I could take in my sheets drying on the line or close my windows. That is some scary shit. Around here the big deal is Lime Disease in addition to West Nile. AHHH…the outdoors is so relaxing isn’t it?
August 13th, 2003 at 8:04 am
here in new york, they release the spraying schedule on the local news during the summer as well as on the city’s homepage. it tells you where they will be spraying and starting at what time so you can stay inside and keep your pets and kids in, too.
carrie anne, i couldn’t figure out where you live from your website, but you should check your local news sites as well as your local department of health site (texas department of health has some stuff on west nile and so do the city homepages.
hth.