Birdwatch Ireland are advising people not to feed garden birds during the summer months due to the threat of disease.
The organisation have shared this advice amid the threat of trichomoniasis, a disease which can spread through garden bird feeders, which has already had an impact on Ireland's finch family. People are being urged not to feed garden birds during the summer and spring months.
It spreads through the saliva of the birds and that food in bird feeders can get contaminated with the disease before it spreads.
"Up until now people have always been doing things right. Birdwatch Ireland's advice has always been that feeding birds year-round is okay", Nigel Hatch of Birdwatch Ireland said. "But we are changing that now because of this disease trichomoniasis…which affects finches in particular".
"We know that garden feeders now are a vector for this, particularly during the warmer months of the year, which allows this disease to survive and thrive and pass the infection on", he added. "It gets to the point where we are seeing between May and October feeding birds in the garden is thought to do more harm than good".
Mr Hatch also said that Birdwatch Ireland have seen the disease continue to spread in the last 20 years, with a possible new strain of it, which has affected the finch family. He explained that populations of greenfinches and chaffinches have "plummeted" in many areas of Ireland due to the spread of this disease.
"This is a bird disease; it is no threat to humans or indeed any mammals", he stated. "None of us can catch this, it is for birds and is not related to bird flu, it is a completely separate disease".
According to Mr Hatch, this disease causes swelling in the throats of birds, which leads them to being unable to swallow and then starve. He also said there is no cure for birds who contract this disease.
