Nature did indeed take care of her own after all...I woke this morning to find the poor little thing dead, lying quietly on the pile of sunflower kernels.
Thank you for the kind words, loris.
I think as a lover of wildlife the decisions to get involved or not in an animal's suffering are the hardest for me. I guess the very hardest are the ones which are obviously in the process of dying a horrible death and you wish only to give it haste for them. Sometimes you just can't.

OH NO, please go over to the birdwatching forum and read my post about the flufed up birds. What you have there is salmenilla. I had two that I cought and brough in two days ago. They rooseted together through the night, then died the next day. You must take all your feeders down and wash them with a bleach solution. You know the drill I am sure. Clean under the feeders and any bird baths too.There has been a outbreak in our reigon. It is highly contageous and can be transmited to humans and domestic pets. There are several good links in the post over there. This is NOT one of those things that you want to let nature take it's course with. This affects birds in the finch family the most, including pine siskins. I know how badly you felt, I go through the same dilema myself and it was so sad to watch those little birdies die, I was going to take them to the rehabber to be put to sleep, there is nothing to cure it, I am glad they had each other in a warm place to die. So WARNING to anybody in this region, pleas please keep your feeders EXTRA CLEAN especially UNDER them , this is spread by fecies. I am so sorry dirtgirl.
Lisa

So sorry about the little bird Dirtgirl. It always strikes me as so sad when a bird dies alone. I have had it go both ways, with an injured bird.........some die, some live. It's a really tough issue......whether to leave them alone outside, or bring them in.
If I see a bird hit the window, and it's obtunded, I will put a chicken wire circle around it, to protect it for a little while, while it's coming back to it's senses.
If I see a bird with an injured wing, I bring it in.
It's just really hard not to have "human" feelings towards it. We imagine how we'd feel outside, alone, hurt. I'm sorry about your little goldfinch. I think it felt your kindness.

You know, there are rehabbers that can care for injured and sick birds. Hitting a window is not "nature."

lisa, were your two doing anything strange? Like my post stated, all this one wanted to do was sit on a pile of food. It would puff up occasionally, and I noticed it was breathing heavily most of the time. .I did notice that its eyes were totally clear and bright.
I will never know if this was a bird with an illness or just one that had struck the window and was mentally affected. I do know that a goldfinch HAD in fact had a run in with the window at some point during the day as evidenced by the little tuft of yellowish feathers adhering to the pane..
Every year we see at least one or two birds acting stangely in the yard,usually blackbirds but occasionally a goldfinch.
We have been having a significant drop in the overall numbers of birds at the feeders in general although I have assumed this must be due to a good year weather/food wise. Once you get away from the yard and into the underbrush/thickets the birds are everywhere and in large numbers. I AM noticing large numbers of purple finches here, which is a bit unusual.

Yesterday I noticed a little downy who was very unwell .It took much willpower and restraint to not go outside and try to catch it. I just hoped that the local hawk would get it before it suffered too much longer.

Dirtgirl, Yes my birds were puffed up, very slow and lathargic, One had swolen eyes, one did not. They would "bob" while on the birdbath.They ate like pigs. When they were still out they would sit (not stand) in the feeder and eat non stop. The rehabber asked me if their beaks were clean or had seed particals on them. The seed particals on the face is the give away, and yes it was having a hard time eating, I guess it causes lesions in the mouth and throat. I don't remember exactly what she said because thats when she said she would need to put them down and I was upset. I found one other dead bird under the feeder the next day and I see one out there showing symptoms.I hope our weather being back below freezing will help knock this out. The rehabber had been sent a bulletin on the outbreak in our region :( You ar not that far from me and have had the same unusual weather, same symptoms, so I would have to beleive thats what it was. I will try to find the link describing it and post back here.
Good Luck
Lisa