Seedfoot

At the beginning of May, The Diary carried photographs of this chaffinch - post here.  He has a growth on his right foot which an anonymous comment described as papillomatosis, a not uncommon ailment of chaffinches.  The comment gave a link to a website which described the disease - it's here - which seems to be related to warts.

We called the chaffinch Seedfoot, because the growth looks exactly as if the seed we put out for the small birds had stuck to his leg.  We didn't expect him to survive, but he's been doing extremely well, and has certainly remained in very good condition.

The foot does seem to worry him - this picture shows him standing on one leg, as if to ease the affected one - and we've seen him stretch out the seedy leg, as if it's bothering him.  At one time he spent much of his time in the company of a lady chaffinch, but we don't know whether he successfully mated and raised a family.

Seedfoot is a regular visitor to our front wall where we put out the bird food.