European starling
Description: chunky; blackbird size; short, square tail; long, slender bill; blackish wings; covered in white spots in winter. During breeding season plumage appears purplish, iridescent; bill is yellow.
Habitat: agricultural areas; lawns; landfills; roadsides; cities; parking lots; forest edges
Range in Georgia: abundant statewide
Voice: various squawks, whistles, squeaks and shrieks; loud and boisterous; can imitate other birds and human sounds
Diet: various invertebrates; food wastes; berries; seeds
Nesting: Nest site is in any kind of cavity, usually in a natural hollow or woodpecker hole in a tree, or in a birdhouse. Nest is a loose mass of twigs, weeds, grass, leaves, trash, feathers, with slight depression for eggs. 4-6 greenish white to bluish white eggs, unmarked; incubation by both parents about 12 days; young leave the nest about 21 days after hatching; 2 broods per year
Unless you’re a Shakespeare scholar, you might not be familiar with this quote from Hotspur in the play “Henry IV”: “Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but ‘Mortimer,’ and give it him. …”
Hotspur, the eldest son of the first Earl of Northumberland, is threatening to drive King Henry nuts by having a starling repeat the name of Hotspur’s brother-in-law, Mortimer, whom Henry refuses to ransom from prison. (Starlings are known for their ability to imitate other birds, mechanical sounds and even human speech.)
Of all Shakespeare’s works, the short line in “Henry IV” is the only time he mentions starlings.
Yet, it is the reason that the non-native European starling today is one of Georgia’s biggest avian pests and one of North America’s most despised birds. Here’s the background:
In the late 1890s, a man named Eugene Schieffelin, an avid Shakespeare fan, brought over some 100 starlings from England and released them in New York’s Central Park. It was part of a plan to bring to America every bird ever mentioned by Shakespeare.
The released starlings quickly multiplied and began spreading to other areas. Today, an estimated 200 million starlings inhabit North America, from Alaska to Mexico.
What makes them so loathed is that they gather in huge winter flocks that endanger air travel and harass cattle operations, and they roost on city blocks, leaving behind caustic, foul-smelling droppings and doing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage each year.
They also are fiercely aggressive for nesting cavities, ousting such native birds as bluebirds, tree swallows and various woodpeckers. In addition, starlings are highly combative at feeders, driving away smaller birds and quickly exhausting bird seed supplies.
As I write this column, in fact, I can see from my window a small flock of starlings gorging themselves on the suet and other feed at the bird feeders. Smaller birds that were there earlier are now nowhere in sight.
In the sky: The moon will be last-quarter Friday, said David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer. Mercury is low in the east just before sunrise. Venus is in the west just after dark and sets about two hours later. Mars also sets in the west a few hours after sunset. Jupiter is high in the east just after dark and is visible all night. Saturn rises out of the east around midnight and will appear near the moon Wednesday night.
