[Called also: EUROPEAN STARLING, AOU 1998]
Length -- 8 to 9 inches. Weight about equals that of robin, but
the starling, with its short, drooping tail, is chunkier in
appearance.
Male -- Iridescent black with glints of purple, green, and blue.
On back the black feathers, with iridescence of green and
bronze, are tipped with brown, as are some of the tail and wing
feathers. In autumn and early winter feathers of sides of head,
breast, flanks and underparts are tipped with white, giving a
gray, mottled appearance. During the winter most of the white
tips on breast and underparts wear off. Until the first moult
in late summer the young birds are a dark olive-brown in color,
with white or whitish throat. These differences in plumage at
different seasons and different ages make starlings hard to
identify. Red-winged blackbirds and grackles are often mistaken
for them. From early spring till mid-June, starling's rather
long, sharp bill is yellow. Later in summer it darkens. No
other black bird of ours has this yellow bill at any season.
Female -- Similar in appearance.
Range -- Massachusetts to Maryland. Not common beyond 100 miles
inland. (Native of northern Europe and Asia.)
Migrations -- Permanent resident, but flocks show some tendency
to drift southward in winter.
This newcomer to our shores is by no means so black as he has been painted.
Like many other European immigrants he landed at or near Castle Garden, New
York City, and his descendants have not cared to wander very far from this
vicinity, preferring regions with a pretty numerous human population. The
starlings have increased so fast in this limited region since their first
permanent settlement in Central Park about 1890 that farmers and suburban
dwellers have feared that they might become as undesirable citizens as some
other Europeans -- the brown rat, the house mouse, and the English sparrow.
But a very thorough investigation conducted by the United States Bureau of
Biological Survey (Bulletin No. 868, 1921) is most reassuring in its results.
Let us first state the case for the prosecution: (1) the starling must plead
guilty to a fondness for cultivated cherries; (2) he is often a persecutor of
native birds, like the bluebird and flicker; (3) his roosts, where he
sometimes congregates in thousands in the autumn, are apt to become public
nuisances, offensive alike to the eye, the nose and the ear.
But these offences are not so very serious after all. He does not eat so many
cherries as our old friend the robin, though his depredations are more
conspicuous, for whereas the robins in ones and twos will pilfer steadily from
many trees for many days without attracting notice, a crowd of starlings is
occasionally observed to descend en masse upon a single tree and strip it in a
few hours. Naturally such high-handed procedure is observed by many and deeply
resented by the owner of the tree, who suffers the steady but less spectacular
raids of the robins without serious disquiet,
Less can be said in defense of the starling's scandalous treatment of some
native birds. "Unrelenting perseverance dominates the starling's activities
when engaged in a controversy over a nesting site. More of its battles are won
by dogged persistence in annoying its victim than by bold aggression, and its
irritating tactics are sometimes carried to such a point that it seems almost
as if the bird were actuated more by a morbid pleasure of annoying its
neighbors than by any necessity arising from a scarcity of nesting sites...
"In contests with the flicker the starling frequently makes up in numbers what
disadvantage it may have in size. Typical of such combats was the one observed
on May 9, at Hartford, Conn., where a group of starlings and a flicker were in
controversy over a newly excavated nest. The number of starlings varied, but
as many as 6 were noted at one time. Attention was first attracted to the
dispute by a number of starlings in close proximity to the hole and by the
sounds of a tussle within. Presently a flicker came out dragging a starling
after him. The starling continued the battle outside long enough to allow one
of its comrades to slip into the nest. Of course the flicker had to repeat the
entire performance. He did this for about half an hour, when he gave up,
leaving the starlings in possession of the nest...
"Economically considered, the starling is the superior of either the flicker,
the robin, or the English sparrow, three of the species with which it comes in
contact in its breeding operations. The eggs and young of bluebirds and wrens
may be protected by the use of nest boxes with circular openings 1 1/2 inches
or less in diameter. This leaves the purple martin the only species readily
subject to attack by the starling, whose economic worth may be considered
greater than that of the latter, but in no case was the disturbance of a
well-established colony of martins noted."
As for the nuisance of a big established roost of starlings, it may be abated
by nightly salvos of Roman candles or blank cartridges, continued for a week
or at most ten days.
So much for the starling in his aspect as an undesirable citizen. Government
investigators, by a long-continued study, have discovered that his good deeds
far outnumber his misdemeanors. Primarily he feeds on noxious insects and
useless wild fruits. Small truck gardens and individual cherry trees may be
occasionally raided by large flocks with disastrous results in a small way.
But on the whole he is a useful frequenter of our door-yards who 'pays his way
by destroying hosts of cut-worms and equally noxious' insects. "A thorough
consideration of the evidence at hand indicates that, based on food habits,
the adult starling is the economic superior of the robin, catbird, flicker,
red-winged blackbird, or grackle." Need more be said for him?