Day 117 - Poxy Tits

cone of shame?

Well, that got your attention, didn't it?   It's a trick I've used before, but it works pretty well!

If you zoom into the middle of this photo (which I've just realised you probably can't do), you'll see a little Great Tit on the fence.

Ok here, I've done it for you.

You can see that there is a pale, grape sized growth on the left of his chest (that's his left, assuming I'm not doing that Opposites Annoy thing again). 

This is Avian Pox, and it has spread through the Great Tit population in the UK over the last few years.

It doesn't seem to kill them directly, but makes them vulnerable to predation, unable to reproduce and otherwise have difficulty safely going about their lives.

This little chap didn't seem to be able to fly.  However, he did seem relatively healthy, and was happily engaged with a large, green caterpillar that he'd caught for his dinner.   As I watched and tried to get a decent picture on my phone, he hopped off energetically along the fence, and into the safety of the hedgerow.

We do have a lot of pox around here.  A couple of years ago, Loz had a nasty attack of Cat Pox.   The symptoms in cats consist of sores and spots on the body, and ulcers in the mouth.  I say ulcers...Loz's mouth was completely raw right down her throat.  She couldn't eat or drink, and became dangerously ill.  Loz barely survived, and then only with a week in the vet's equivalent of Intensive Care.  I reckon she used at least two of her lives that time.

Apparently, the cat pox virus lives dormant in field voles.   Field voles are quite populous around our hawthorn hedgerows, and under the paths around our garden.  Loz catches a couple of vole per day during the summer...

I'm sure you can see where this is going...it's a miracle she hasn't caught it again.

Fortunately, at least, the various pox viruses tend to be specific to their host species...smallpox is the main human version, but we are immune to Feline or Avian Pox, and the latter doesn't seem to affect mammals at all.  

Let's hope these viruses don't pool their resources!  Makes you realise how very vulnerable we are, as a species, to biological agents of one type or another. 

Anyway, to finish on a brighter note, which is almost (but not quite) related to the rest of this blog, the photo at the top did have the effect of nagging me to mow the lawns, which I duly did earlier on.  That was heavy work, not least because the grass was long, damp and heavy, and the mower's drive system doesn't work, so I just have to use a bit (actually a lot!) of grunt. 

A spot of exercise, the garden is looking quite a bit better, and a good job got jobbed!

Now I'm a bit (actually a lot!) knackered...

But still, yay me!

B-)