Forwarded message - Regarding the thieving starlings

[Milton Moody <miltonmoody at yahoo dot com>]

Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 11:26:40 -0700 
From: "Feather Forestwalker" <feather@earthling.net> 
Subject: Regarding the thieving starlings 
 

Hello,

I have to say that I loved that story about the European Starlings in 
Maryland, http://www.utahbirds.org/BirdStory.htm -

I have an educated guess as to what that male in the photo was doing: 
oftentimes male starlings will clear out old nesting area of debris in 
order to create a new nesting spot for his potential mate. Once the old

debris is cleared, he will start bringing in grasses and feathers to 
line the nest. Once completed with that, he will sit and start calling 
for a mate. Since the male's efforts were obviously in vain, thwarted 
every time someone used the carwash change machine, he got stuck in a 
rut, behaviorally-speaking, and just kept up the cleaning part. Poor 
birdy. . .*LOL*

The article says that there were more than one bird. Perhaps one after 
the other, the different males simply got tired? Or perhaps it's a 
group getting ready to create a roosting area for winter? *laughing* 
Starlings do roost in fairly large numbers during the winter, inside
holes in walls, etc., so perhaps that's what they were doing.

Anyway, thanks for a fun and interesting story!

Feather


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