European Starling

On a clear day the birds come out. We don't have to many of those right now, clear days or birds, so I have to take advantage of the situation whenever I can. I was lucky enough to find this European Starling right outside my house. It's the first time I have been able to do that. They usually fly away too soon.

I've seen pictures of these starlings before but I never thought I'd actually see one. When I walked out my front door I heard birds singing in the trees. I still didn't expect them to stay long enough for me to get any pictures, but as I got closer to my truck I realized that they weren't leaving.

I was lucky enough to have my camera already in my hand because I was headed to the hiking trails. It was easy enough to turn on the camera and start taking pictures. The only problem was that I forgot that I had the lighting set for taking pictures in the woods. After several pictures I changed the setting.

I decided that since this was the first starling I've seen I'd do a little bit of research. I thought I'd find some of the regular fun bird information that I find all the time, but what I really found wasn't necessarily very good. These starlings aren't considered to be very nice birds at all.

It seems that starlings are immigrants to this country, like most of the people here. As their name indicates, they originally come from Europe, where over hundreds of years they adapted to living in and around human settlements. In  1890 one hundred starlings were brought here and released in Central Park in New York City. Since then they've spread over most of North America.

These birds allegedly group together in large hordes and have the capability of ruining everything in their path. They steal the homes of other birds, they eat and spoil the food of cattle, they damage crops, and they are very difficult to drive away. That's not a pretty picture at all. But their is a good side to them.

Insects. Insects are considered to be much greater pests than these starlings, and the starlings eat them. They eat insects like locusts and ground beetles, which cause much more destruction than them, so the final verdict on these birds is that the good they do outweighs the damage. So I guess there is a happy ending to the legend of these birds.

You might have noticed that these last two pictures are a little brighter than the first two. As I said above, I had to make an adjustment with the camera. The first two pictures were good so I decided to include them anyway. You can get a good look at the birds by clicking on any of the pictures though.

And finally in this last picture you can see the bird from the back. Notice all of the tiny white speckles all over it. This is what always fascinated me about starlings. Maybe that's how they got their name. All of those tiny speckles look like stars at night. Maybe. Maybe not.

I told you yesterday that the poll results had a small chance of being delayed again. That small chance turned into this flock of European starlings, so hopefully I'll have the poll results tomorrow. I also have some other things to catch up on around here, and I'll see if I can do that in the next few days. Talk to you then.