They will suck your brains out. DH found this poor bird already dead beside the house today. I didn't know ticks were even out this time of year. Or that they could even do this to a bird. Well, guessing the tick was why it died.
Well they won't suck your brains out, but they do survive on blood, and little birds like that don't have much, as with other small animals.
I didn't think ticks attatched to birds because their body temp was too high... Learn something new everyday.
the tick was probably living in the birds nest,,, but i doubt the tick is why it died,, it would burst before it got even 1/4 of the birds blood.
I think I'm going to have nightmares from that pic..... Poor poor bird! I can believe that the tick would have killed it. If the tick was diverting enough blood from reaching the brain I suspect that death might have been caused. Not to mention the invasive nature of the tick's bite and burrowing around the skull.....who knows what mouth parts ended up where. Ick.....just ick! Not a nice way to die if this truly is what happened. Maybe take the bird to a vet for an autopsy to find out for sure? The vet may be curious enough to do it. Urban Coyote
I would like to know what really caused that little birds death. It wasn't thin and its feathers looked healthy. DH already gave it a proper burial in the woods and we probably couldn't even find him again. Guess we'll never really know.
Yep, I had the same thing happen to one of my BR pullets about a month ago. She was acting strange, wouldn't eat, just stood around, looking dazed, and when I separated her from the others to check her, I noticed a big, fat, tick right over her eye. I really do believe that it could have killed her, if I had not removed it, because she was declining so quickly, over the course of 24 hours. When I carefully removed the tick, the wound bled like crazy, and was really hurting her, from what I could tell. It took her a full 24 hours more to come back around. I'll be watching out for these little bloodsuckers from here on out!