July, 2005
Dear House Finch Disease Survey Participants,
Thank you for all of your helpful responses, it was great to hear from so many of you. Please feel free to hit the “reply” button to send in questions, thoughts, and comments. The way I have the list set up, there’s no way for an individual (except for me) to send a post to everyone at once. Your replies then, will all come back to (only) me.
Some comments I received that I thought would be helpful for everyone:
“I didn’t see any disease this year (month, day, etc.), so I didn’t report in.” Because we calculate disease prevalence based on your entries, it’s critical to know whether you are seeing diseased and healthy individuals. If we only took reports of illness, it would appear that 100% of the birds in your area were infected. It’s also important to know whether or not you see House Finches at all, so marking that you observed your feeders but there were no House Finches is still valuable data. To read some more on this “negative” data, check out this piece in BirdScope: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/publications/birdscope/Spring1997/NegDat97112.htm
“The online data entry is tedious.” I completely agree, the survey needs to be updated for the web. Unfortunately, it will take some time to make this happen. Until then, I appreciate your patience!
“I see lots of birds with ‘bulging’ eyes and malformed bills.” Likely, these birds are suffering from avian pox, a disease that causes growths on un-feathered areas of a bird’s body (like the bill, eyes, and feet). When pox affects the area near the eye, it can be easily confused with conjunctivitis. In general, you’ll rarely see ‘bulging’ eyes with conjunctivitis, or anything that might be described as a tumor or growth. Conjunctivitis causes irritation and weepy, crusty eyes (sometimes crusted shut). If you’re uncertain, please do send me a picture and I’d be happy to confirm what you’re seeing. Or, visit our pox vs. conjunctivitis page at:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/hofi/recognizing.html
“I’m out of paper data forms.” Because this is a long-term, ongoing study, we hope that you’ll continue to participate. We give out enough paper data forms to last a year, whereupon participants must renew their membership (free) to get more forms. This is to ensure you still receive copies of BirdScope, which is an annual subscription. If you’re out of paper data forms, the most efficient way to renew is to visit the sign up page and enter your information once more. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/hofisignup/signup.html
Our membership department will recognize this as a renewal and some new forms will be sent out promptly.
Thank you once more for all your help on this project. I look forward to your questions and comments. As always, if you’d prefer to not be on this list, email me and I’ll remove you.
Good birding!
Sarah Goodwin
June, 2005
Dear House Finch Disease Survey Participants,
Firstly, thank you all for your continued help with this project. The dedication many of you have shown over the years is truly impressive and much of what we’ve learned about mycoplasmal conjunctivitis could not have happened without your input. Thank you also to our new participants who have helped to fill in many areas of our data. We appreciate all the hard work you’ve all done and hope you’ll continue to help!
I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself as the new coordinator of the House Finch Disease Survey. One of my first priorities is to increase communication between participants and researchers and answer some common questions that come up. I choose to make this list one way (only I can post to it) to respect your privacy, but I would be glad to include comments from participants that would be relevant to the group in each post. Due to the sheer number of participants in this project, I likely won’t be able to answer each question personally. Postings will be monthly, unless demand for dialogue is high enough that it should become more frequent.
Some topics for this post:
RENEWALS:The House Finch Disease Survey is an ongoing, long term study. However, when a participant signs up to enter data, that membership only lasts for a year. For participants that enter data on paper forms, this becomes clear when paper data sheets run out, and we automatically renew folks who request more forms. However, this can be less than intuitive. For folks who enter data online, there is no reminder and the system continues to allow you to enter data long after your membership runs out (I’m working on fixing this). Once your membership runs out, you also no longer receive issues of BirdScope, the Lab’s quarterly publication (this summer’s will be a special edition on the Ivory Bill!). To renew your membership in this project (free), simply follow this link:
www.birds.cornell.edu/hofisignup/signup.html
This is the sign-up page for the project and accepts new members along with renewals. If you don’t know your Lab ID number, just leave the field blank.
PROJECT FEEDERWATCH:Many of you participate in Project FeederWatch along with the House Finch Disease Survey. Although the FeederWatch season has ended, the House Finch Disease Survey continues year round. If possible, please do continue to enter data in the summer months.
WEST COAST:As many of you know, mycoplasmal conjunctivitis recently made its way to the West Coast. Preliminary data show the disease is spreading much differently there than how it did back East. For example, the disease seems to be spreading slowly and at lower prevalence levels (proportion of sick individuals in the population) than out East. We need more data to better understand this difference, which means more participants entering more data. Spread the word to your birding friends, and please contact me if you’d like to bring any flyers to bird or garden meetings.
WEB PAGE: I’ve made some changes to the web page (www.birds.cornell.edu/hofi), including a page devoted to detailing the difference between mycoplasmal conjunctivitis and avian pox and another that concisely describes the differences between Purple Finches and House Finches. More changes to come, for now, enjoy!
NEST SURVEY:Last year was the pilot season for a spin-off project from the House Finch Disease Survey; the House Finch Nest Survey. Researchers were interested in determining if seasonal variation in disease prevalence is related to breeding biology. One big spike in disease prevalence occurs in early fall, around the time when many juvies first hit the air all together. Participants in this study locate and monitor House Finch nests in their homes and neighborhoods and record their observation on nest cards (provided). Like in the disease survey, participation is free of charge. If you have a House Finch nesting near your home or you are interested in nest searching and monitoring, please do sign up at: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/hofisignup/nestsignup.html
I’ll save more tidbits for the next posting. If you’d prefer not to receive emails from this project, please email me back (include your name) and I’ll remove you promptly.
