During the autumn and winter months my wife and I noticed a rather large number and variety of birds with various deformities and diseases but it proved impossible to get decent photographs. The magpie featured in my previous post is incapable of using it's legs - simply using it's breast to land and perch (it is still surviving today). The great tit was only seen once - it had a large growth on the side of it's face and seemed incapable of turning it's head. At least two dunnocks were seen with head deformities and soon vanished from the scene. Two partridges were seen - one had a large lump/growth to the rear of it's left eye partly obscuring it. The other one had some sort of deformity on top of it's head. Blackbirds also featured with top of the head baldness and some sort of scaley growth. Chaffinches were prominent with scaley leg growths and one I nick named 'helicopter' because it's legs seemed so painful that it had to hover to gently lower itself to the ground. Finally when the fieldfare appeared I did not give much for it's chances - it tucked itself away for a couple of days. Eventually we managed to coax it out to partake of apples. Over a period of five days it seemed to recover it's strength and flew away.
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