Dead Birds

I've been finding dead birds around lately. A bluebird died for unknown reasons in my driveway. There was a dead crow, feet up in the air, on the sidewalk in front of Subway the other day. I went into Subway and said, "there's some chicken teriyaki feed stock out here!"

I prefer to concentrate on live birds: here's some nice pictures, courtesy of Fred and Julia, of a hummingbird's nestlings.

The County is going to be spraying for West Nile virus soon:

County officials said the pesticide's active ingredients, pyrethrins, a natural toxin from chrysanthemum flowers, is considered one of the safest insecticides on the market.

The insecticide, which goes by the brand Evergreen EC 60-6, will be heavily diluted from concentrations applied on farms and will be sprayed in droplets smaller than a grain of pollen.

That's large enough to kill mosquitoes and other airborne insects but too small to affect mammals and people, said Dan Markowski, one of a team of specialists with Vector Disease Control Inc., which the county hired to conduct the aerial spraying.

The spray will not kill all the mosquitoes and will not end the virus threat, officials said.

The spray is designed to kill adult mosquitoes that are airborne but not insect larvae on the ground, official said.

Markowski said the planes will dispense two-thirds of an ounce of pyrethrins for every acre sprayed, an "ultra-low" concentration, and that the aerosol will be
virtually unnoticeable.

"If you were standing on the ground, and the airplane was flying right over, you might see a very fine mist coming out, but I'd doubt you will feel it," Markowski told The Bee.

A pair of Piper Aztec twin engine planes will release the aerosol from about 300 feet above ground, covering the same 71,000 acres in the north county on each of the three nights.

The spraying will last about four hours, between 8:45 p.m. and 12:30 a.m., Markowski said.

He said the pyrethrins formulation is considerably less toxic than the insecticide the company has used in aerial sprays of residential areas to combat the West Nile virus in Houston and mosquito-borne diseases in Miami.

"Last week we treated 189,000 acres in Houston with Dibrom and had no reports of problems," Markowski said.