Gulls with black eyes from bird flu survival (2 Viewers)

[Dean Nicholson]

Been reading recently about seabirds (esp Gannets) showing an all dark iris as a consequence of getting and surviving bird flu...
The attached sub-ad Herring Gull on my local beach in Mablethorpe, Lincs on Aug 11th shows such eyes.... not even any dark pupil visible, simply black.

At first i thought about possible Caspian genes being involved but it doesn't seem right for that.... apart from the iris it was a perfect Herring Gull, and i'm pretty sure such eyes can't be attributed to immaturity.

Not sure if any/many other gulls have been seen recently showing anything similar?

Regards
Dean

 

[Stonefaction]

I had a bird here in Dundee with one black eye and one 'normal' eye, earlier in the year. The black eye was on the side I saw the bird from most (but later at home I found it had a 'normal' eye on the other side in a sequemce of photos of the bird).

 

[Scarvisterlucy]

This eye thing has also been reported on the Isle of May by the researchers there in herring gulls.

 

[jogresh]

Interesting stuff. Anyone know of a source for this idea? Not necessarily a full blown scientific paper - perhaps a blog, or forum comment by a virologist or lab ornithologist, or veterinarian etc? Just curious. 🤔👍🐦

 

[David_]

Interesting stuff. Anyone know of a source for this idea? Not necessarily a full blown scientific paper - perhaps a blog, or forum comment by a virologist or lab ornithologist, or veterinarian etc? Just curious. 🤔👍🐦

I haven‘t read anything about this for gulls. But for Northern Gannets I think there have been multiple studies about it and that this could be used as a non-invasive indicator of monitoring numbers of gannets which survived avian flu

Couldn’t find the actual paper but here is a press release:

Black eyes in seabirds indicates bird flu survival

Scientists have discovered evidence that Northern Gannets can recover from bird flu and that unusual black iris coloration is linked to a previous HPAIV infection

www.rspb.org.uk

 

[jogresh]

Cheers for that. 🙂👍

 

[Dyrlege]

Cheers for that. 🙂👍

Not really: it probably means that this is one of the species transporting the virus into new areas...
Per

 

[Jos Stratford]

Not really: it probably means that this is one of the species transporting the virus into new areas...
Per

'Cheers' means thanks, ie thank you for the link

 

[Dyrlege]

'Cheers' means thanks, ie thank you for the link

And "that" is not necessarily specific in what it points to: I thought it pointed to "survive bird flu"😄