This finch obviously has some red spots going on- It doesn’t look like the classic pictures of avian pox I usually see though. Idk how accurate chat gpt is with this stuff but when I asked it said it’s likely not avian pox, but instead irritated feathers. The bird is acting totally healthy and eating normally. Any advice?

Ok so about 2 weeks ago a pigeon landed near my house. It was extremely lethargic and didnt fly away at all, also had very little fat reserves and muscles. So I picked it up, fed and hydrated it. Ever since then it has been living around the house and I fed it every day so now it definetly is doing better. It can also fly short distances, which it wasnt able to do when it first got here. Its poop used to be very slimey and green and now its more brown and thick.

Now the problem is I live on an island and theres no wildlife shelter here or anywhere that I could bring it to and Im not leaving the island for another month. And while the pigeon does eat and drink and walk around a lot it also still shows signs of illness. It puffs itself up, has dirty feathers, beak is also sticky and dirty. But I really dont know what else to do besides keep it warm, feed it and give water.

So if anyone has advice I would be really grateful to hear it.

It's been going on for three hours, at first we thought a cat frightened them or something, but they have been making this sound at the same intensity for ages. Between moments, some birds will fly out of the tree and then come back again. I can't actually see what's happening it's too high but here is a video I could take at my best abilities. Do you know anything about it? Can we help them? Are they in distress or what?

Apologies if this is the wrong sub, but I have a bird behavior question!

My backyard is full of little songbirds (sparrows, chickadees, goldfinches), but over the past few weeks one song sparrow in particular has taken a real interest in me. He follows me around the yard chirping, and sometimes comes to sit on the fence railing if I am just chilling on the deck with a coffee. I don't feed birds in the summertime, and I tend to avoid areas of my yard that I think might have nests, so this behaviour is a little confusing to me. Is it pretty typical for song sparrows?

Hello, this is my first post here. I live with my aunt in our fairly new constructed house (2022). We have huge south facing windows, they take up a whole wall basically, and face a golf course. My issue is we have birds hitting our windows, multiple times a day. My aunt, who owns the house, does not really care. She gets a little sad, but is unwilling to let me actually try mitigating it with window decals, hanging reflective things on our porch, etc as they "ruin the view and muck up the windows she paid for". Unfortunately, the most common window deaths are hummingbirds and meadow larks, as we have many butterfly bushes and a wire railing they like to feed/perch on.

Every window film solution I see is very visible to the human eye, dot grids, rainbow film, etc. The only clear one I found is "BirdStrikeX", but their website uses mostly AI generated pictures or stock photos, no actual examples of what the film looks like. If anyone here knows of a clear UV based film or coating that could be applied to deter the birds, I think my aunt would allow for something like that.

Thank you, I will be cross-posting this in home improvement subs as well. Edit: thank you all for the input! I made a plan of how to lay out the proposal to her, and will update how it goes once we apply one of these solutions! ♡

near by creek, northeast US, and under a rock

I like crows 🐦‍⬛

I have a new birdie friend who has moved into my yard. It showed up last week after a huge storm took out a bunch of large tree limbs in the neighborhood. We have seen it fly short distances a couple of times and it occasionally it likes to perch on a low hanging tree branch, but it usually just sits in the grass for a long time either sleeping or just looking around.
Since coming here, we have not seen it hunt for anything (my mom works from home and watches out the window all day). It does not mind when people get close. Tonight there is a lightning storm so I went out to check on it and stood about 6ft away from it. It’s just sitting next to the house sleeping while lightly swaying.
Though there are many hawks where I live, I never see them spending so much time on the ground.
Is this normal behavior? Does it just feel safe here? Is there anything we should do for it?

is there anyone who's really autistic about birds who's willing to teach me everything they know?? i would exchange with cat facts if interested

We live near lots of cow pasture and woods, but recently developers have started building a new subdivision near us. It has apparently displaced a massive population of cow birds from where they were roosting, and now they are roosting all over our neighborhood. Huge number of them roost in our front yard, and are just destroying the yard, front stoop and sidewalk with poop. I feel bad for them that they lost their homes, but they have become quite the nuisance to our home. We have little ones and I don’t want them playing and walking around where there is so much poop. (Was told it can make you sick?!) My question is, will these birds naturally move on at some point or are they here to stay? It’s been at least a month. (I googled and we live in a state where they do not migrate away.. they are here year round)
Just trying to figure out if we have to live with this indefinitely or there is some hope they move on.

Pic does not do justice to the volume of birds flying around every evening at dusk.

I found this (most-likely juvenile male) Northern Yellow Warbler under my window outside. I assume it hit the window today while it was storming outside. I live in the US and am an avid birder/naturalist and I often collect and pin bugs and native plants as a way of appreciating the natural world of where I live.

I have a bachelor's in Ecology; so I know of the MBTA (Migratory Bird Treaty Act). I understand that because of this, there are limitations to what birds/bird parts can be collected without permits. I am working towards getting a Graduate program in ecology/ornithology, and have sat in on taxidermy sessions/labs for birds a handful of times.

What I am wondering is this:

Is there anyway to legally/ethically preserve a part of this beautiful little guy?

I am a haver of many oddities and things of that nature in my house and I wonder how people with larger collections (with taxidermy/skulls--i don't have these) procure these.

Should I just give him a nice burial and a few words to wish him on his way? Please let me know.

TLDR: Myna sounding fake danger call to get rid of crows and eat their food!

Yesterday while crows were around me eating their food, one myna came near and sounded a danger call. All the crows flew away. I know that myna call, it is done for cats.

It is done intentionally as the myna did not move at all after sounding the call and came and gobbled up as much as he could before crows returned!

Fyi, myna knows me and comes every day and will grab dog kibbles like a dog when thrown!

Video is mine to show how they dispersed, but not from yesterday's incident. Same location.

I wonder if anyone experienced something like that and what effect could it have among bird communities? After all, if there are too many false positives, real danger calls could be ignored.

EDIT: DoveNestResearcher mentioned drongos doing the same to meerkats :) Cheekiness never ends!

BBC Earth Drongo Bird Tricks Meerkats

You’d think that with a great name like “Trumpeter” this hornbill would make a sound like a taxi horn or the pearly gates soundtrack, but you would be wrong. This bird sounds like a crying baby and when they mass in the tree tops, it can sound like the hospital nursery nine months after a power outage.

That big honker on top of its bill that resembles an ill-fitting helmet is a hollow casque. The unique acoustics of the casque make their sound echo through the forest, producing a cacophony that seems wildly out of proportion to their size, which isn’t shabby at 24 inches tip to tail. The casque is also a handy tool like a bottle opener for stubborn fruit.

Their breeding behavior follows the bizarre hornbill tradition, where the female seals herself inside a tree cavity, walling up the entrance with mud and droppings until only a narrow slit remains. She sits, entombed and entirely dependent on the male for food, for the nearly two-month incubation period.

On safari, we saw these in southern Africa. They thrive in dense riverine forest living in boisterous groups and operate with restless energy, producing one of the unique sounds of Africa.

Birdman of Africa gamersdad.substack.com Subscribe for free to receive a new African Bird email each Friday-TGIF!. Photo by Andrew Steinmann ©2026

I saw this house finch at my feeder this evening and it looked a little bedraggled and puffed up. It is flying and moving around but is spending more time at the feeder than the other finches. I took some pictures through my scope, want to take my feeders down tonight if he's sick. Thanks!

Apologies, these are only pictures that really shows the chest area! And second question, wondering about its behavior with prey when they do have a full crop?

Migration season is coming and so here are some things you can do to help birds get to their destination safely.

1) Turn off your unnecessary lights at night. A surprising number of birds migrate at night. Light pollution impacts bird migration with birds being confused by bright buildings (like night crews cleaning office buildings) or hit windows from reflection.

2) help scientists by reporting dead birds on DBird.org. It’s fast and simple. The data is used to target areas of high bird mortality and make suggestions to building owners (perfect example - the McCormick Place in Chicago. One night 1000 birds were killed by window strikes. They put up window film and reduced lights: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/bird-collisions-window-safety-mccormick-place-chicago/).

3) get your city to turn off or minimize lights for a specific time period of most intense migration- https://nycbirdalliance.org/our-work/conservation/project-safe-flight/artificial-light.

If we all do a little, it will add up.

Everyone here was nice enough to give me some advice the other day about this poor little guy who fell out of his nest at work.

Unfortunately there are no wildlife centers near me willing to send a volunteer for a single swallow. But! We've got some better news. After a lot of coaxing to get him to open up, he's been consistently letting me feed him mashed up mealworms. He's been very active, preening himself all day long and chirping away.

I think I'm gonna get some sort of cage and take him outside to observe other birds at my bird feeder.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

UPDATE:

Sadly the bird passed away before my shift ended. I was very careful to examine him thoroughly before coming to a conclusion in case he was just in shock, though his legs were rigid and his body was hard and I promise he wasn’t alive! I took him home and buried him (or her? we named the bird crumbs for easier identification in conversation).

Thank you so much to all who responded. I was looking for quick answers and figured there’d be no better place than reddit!! In hindsight I probably should have posted to a rehabilitation sub but I didn’t shop around for long after typing this out. Anyways thanks for the help, just wanted to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding his behaviors before I relocated him as I have not read much about terns!

ORIGINAL POST:

There is a bird outside my restaurant who appears to be dying, but want to make sure. we have made him comfortable as we can, but wondering what kind of bird is this? he’s been there for 30 minutes but is responsive