In my last post, I mentioned that I saw a diseased House Finch while spending time out with our cardiac kitty (of that I'll return). I mentioned that I try to catch the little fellows when I see them, because a course of antiobiotics has been known to cure the eye disease.
Last summer was the first time I made the effort to catch one of these guys. A male had rested on one of my tube feeders and showed little sign of sensing my presence. I spent several days trying to sneak up and put a hat or towel over him. This appeared to cause an interesting change in behavior at my feeders--at least among the House Finches. Prior to my attempting to stalk our sick finch, the flock that fed at my feeders--all commoners in the Mid-Atlantic--was very tame. Several species seemed to differentiate between when I was adding food to the feeders and when I was bringing our cats out--and would actually flock to the feeding spots when I was doing the former. Afterward, I noticed that as soon as I opened our back door, all of the House Finches would fly away.
Not too long after, I read about a study done at the University of Washington about American Crows being able to identify the people who were capturing and banding them and other crows on the campus also identifying the threatening people.
[Updated to correct study location and link to the paper.]
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