This year I noticed quite a few of my feeder finches with eye disease, mainly the House Finches of course but also a few of the Goldfinches. I'd never really noticed it in my previous years of feeding at this location, but I suppose with the extreme cold this winter it might make sense... if the birds were forced to roost in constant close proximity to keep warm, maybe in larger numbers than usual, then it would have been far easier for the bacteria to spread.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you think about it, I noticed the number of infected birds (and the number of House Finches in general) declined sharply after one of those mid-winter cold snaps, so I expect that a lot of the weakened birds didn't survive. The couple of House Finches that have returned to my feeders recently appear to have healthy eyes, as do all of the Goldfinches I've checked recently. I'll keep cleaning my feeders on the accelerated schedule for a while, though, just in case.
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