At first, he thought the bird had been pecked in the eye by a rival for seed and the wound had become infected. But he noticed that when the finch did fly away, it “was like a butterfly.” Its wings were flapping slowly, and it appeared to be flying erratically, looking for a place a land. Over the next month, he found two or three dead birds in his yard. He didn’t think much of it. “Birds do die,” he reasoned. It wasn’t until Wednesday that he learned that something more nefarious might be afoot. That day, he learned from a neighbor who’s a member of a Facebook birding group that the state Game Commission issued an ominous warning about a mysterious illness killing songbirds in Pennsylvania and nine other states, asking residents to cease feeding birds as that may be how the disease spreads.