- Do you have questions about birds, bugs, bees, butterflies or other wildlife? Send your questions to Wild Things and we will try to find the answers.
Answer to reader question
Dave K. asks: “I’m seeing orange bird poop on the ground. What bird is this?”
Foods containing orange pigments can turn bird poop orange. Carrots and sweet potatoes might do it, though it is more likely a wild bird ate invasive bittersweet, burning bush (illegal to sell in Massachusetts) or purple-leafed wintercreeper. Robins that leave behind reddish poop have been known to snack on yew berries. From your description, I cannot tell what kind of bird visited you, but orange poop is not a cause for concern.
What does the U.S. bird flu epidemic mean for you? For your pets? What precautions should you take?
Humans do not get bird flu very easily (yet), but people do occasionally catch it. In addition, catching it can be fatal to your cat. Dogs are largely unaffected right now, but the virus has the ability to mutate and, in the future, might become more transmissible to dogs and people.
A little history. Scientists first detected the virus that causes bird flu in China in 1996. It spread in poultry farms and sometimes caused farmers to cull entire flocks. Once in a while, the virus jumped from farmed domestic birds to wild birds. In 2020, the virus mutated into its current form (called highly pathogenic avian influenza). This form of the virus lasts long enough in infected wild birds that the birds have time to migrate before dying. In this way, birds pass the virus to other birds across oceans or on the far sides of mountain ranges. This new form of the virus spread quickly around the globe.
Many waterfowl carry a mild form of the avian flu, which is often asymptomatic. It spreads when birds congregate during migration or nesting. When people destroy wetlands, they force migrating birds into smaller and smaller areas. Chicken at poultry farms near wetlands are at great risk of infection. They provide the virus with an opportunity to swap genes into more transmissible or fatal strains. These strains then jump back to wild birds, who carry the new virulent strain worldwide. “The emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza is a direct result of commercial, large-scale poultry farming,” said Vincent Munster, chief of the virus ecology unit at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
It is unclear how the virus is transmitted from one bird to another. One theory is that birds and other mammals scavenge on the carcasses of dead infected birds. Another theory is that bird poop gets in water and animals drink the water. Scientists are investigating these theories and others, but recent federal funding cuts could impede their progress.
Our winter weather likely contributed to the spread of this virus: Because temperatures have been so cold, many waterways froze and birds congregated closer together in the remaining open water.
The current strain of bird flu reached the shores of North America in late 2021, then traveled to South America. There it infected and killed huge numbers of elephant seals, sea lions, porpoises, dolphins, pelicans, terns and otters. In North America, it has killed ducks, geese, swans, shorebirds, bald eagles, seals, pelicans and terns. It recently killed a 21-year-old harbor seal at the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford. Millions of birds and tens of thousands of marine mammals from more than 500 species have been killed worldwide.
In January, a man in Louisiana died from the bird flu – the first U.S. human fatality. Scientists sequenced the virus in his body and discovered that the virus was changing. If, for example, a person already has a different type of flu, the bird flu virus can mix and match its genes with this other strain – a process called reassortment. This reassortment could potentially create a new Frankenvirus that is easily transmitted from person to person. Because there is so much seasonal flu going around now, the potential for reassortment is high.Unfortunately, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has halted the CDC’s seasonal flu vaccination campaign and the United States has halted flu communication with the World Health Organization. Research into how this virus spreads is threatened by federal funding cuts
Backyard birds, such as robins and cardinals, do not usually carry the bird flu virus. Bird flu commonly infects waterfowl and can spread to poultry, cows, goats and wild mammals.
Infected birds shed the virus in their saliva, mucus and feces. It can spread to a person if the virus is inhaled or gets into the person’s nose, eyes or mouth. Occasionally a farmer catches the virus from the carcasses or feces of poultry or dairy cows – the virus was identified in dairy cows in 2024 – but so far, person-to-person spread of the virus does not seem to be occurring.
Although the virus can get into milk from those cows, pasteurization from high heat kills the virus. In August, Massachusetts tested all its licensed dairy herds for the virus and found no positive samples. (Massachusetts is the only state in the nation that has tested all its dairy herds, by the way.) The virus can arrive at any time, though, and some of our milk comes from out of state. For this reason, people and pets should not consume unpasteurized milk or raw meat.
Eggs should also be safe to eat, but cook your eggs just in case. When chickens become infected, the illness is identified quickly and all of the chickens on the farm are destroyed. This has led to egg shortages and high egg prices, but the eggs themselves are deemed safe. (To help alleviate the egg shortage, the nation of Turkey has signed a deal to export 420 million eggs to the United States this year.)
What about cats? So far, most of the cats that have caught the avian flu lived on dairy farms. Others died from eating raw pet food. Because this virus is often fatal in cats, the risk to your feline’s health is great if it does catch it. The virus has been found in mice and rats, so it a cat catches an infected rodent, the cat is at risk of infection. Cats might also catch this virus if they come into contact with infected birds or their droppings, drink infected water, or meet up with feral cats. For these reasons, most experts recommend keeping cats indoors.
Cats are more susceptible to bird flu than dogs, or perhaps dogs just have milder infections. Still, dogs should be leashed when outdoors and kept away from wild birds or dead waterfowl. Don’t allow dogs to drink from puddles or waterways or to eat dead critters.
Avian flu has been widespread in Massachusetts since 2022, killing many geese, ducks and swans. In addition, raptors and mammals that eat carrion are also at high risk. If you spot five or more dead birds in a single location, MassWildlife wants to know. They also want to know if you spot a dead eagle, peregrine falcon or snowy owl. Report your findings at mass.gov/reportbirds.
Let us know if you have additional questions about bird flu.
Have you taken photos of our urban wild things? Send your images to Cambridge Day, and we may use them as part of a future feature. Include the photographer’s name and the general location where the photo was taken.
Jeanine Farley is an educational writer who has lived in the Boston area for more than 30 years. She enjoys taking photos of our urban wild things.
The far left and far right of the background on the feature image to this post (not seen above) was generated digitally and is not real. The rabbit was photographed and is real.
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