PAPERS & ARTICLES

infectious disease, and the resultant dispersal of the birds may also lead to an increased number of infected sites. The impact on bird behaviour of providing a continuous source of food at one location, and then reducing or withdrawing that food supply, also needs further investigation. E coli 086 did not appear to be widespread on either site, being found only incidentally in a chaffinch that died after colliding with a window. This may have been due to the fact that E coli 086 seems to be a particular problem in green-finches and siskins, neither of which were frequent visitors to sites A or B, or that in the absence of selective media small growths of E coli 086 could have been overgrown by other organisms, including salmonella. Further studies are required to investigate the epidemiology of infection with E coli 086 in siskins and greenfinches