Starlings

European Starling

Sturnus vulgaris
Minutes before the sun went down on 2 February 1975, the skies above a tranquil evergreen plantation in Gates were transformed into bedlam. “Off to the west there was a seemingly endless mass of birds streaming across the horizon and dropping like a tremendous, flapping blanket over and into the evergreens,” John Brown reported. “They kept coming in vast waves from as far away as binoculars could pick them up.” Most of the estimated 238,945 birds that flew into the plantation just east of Howard Road and north of Hinchey Road in Gates were Starlings, with much smaller numbers of Cowbirds, Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds, Brown noted. (BA, 5 February 1975)And all because of this passage in Shakespeare’s King Henry IV:
    I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak    Nothing but ‘Mortimer,’ and give it [to the King]
The connection? When one Eugene Scheifflin decided to bring to the United States all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare, he naturally had to include European Starlings, because of that one, single passage in which the bard made reference to them – even though previous attempts to introduce this species had failed. Scheifflin released 80 of them in New York City’s Central Park in 1890. And the rest is history. “After a decade or two of reproducing around the city, flocks of starlings began to sweep out over the country,” Danny Ingold notes. “Accounts of their dispersal read like stories about the advance of an invading army.” (Marcotte, p. 17)
Background
Indeed, the “success of the European Starling in North America is nothing less than phenomenal,” notes Paul Cabe in his profile of this species for The Birds of North America. There are now an estimated 200 million of these compact, stocky birds on this continent. This may represent as much as a third of the entire global population. Why? No native species has adapted as well to our urban environment, yet it also thrives in agricultural areas. Its extremely varied diet, and its ability to “nest virtually anywhere a cavity can be found” including openings in buildings, nest boxes, and cavities usurped from woodpeckers, have contributed to its success. Much of this success has been at the expense of the native songbirds its evicts from prime nest sites, including Eastern Bluebird, Purple Martin and various woodpecker species. Overall North American population may have stabilized, but this species is apparently still increasing along the southern and northern edges of its range. (BNA 48:1, 11, 16-17)
Local history
It is momentarily startling to look in Eaton’s Birds of New York (1910) and find no mention of this bird occurring in Monroe, Livingston or Wayne counties. (Eaton I: county charts) But, of course, the wave of invaders had not yet reached western New York.The first nine starlings reached Rochester in 1918, when they were seen from 2 January to 6 March, R. E. Horsey notes in his listing of birds recorded at Rochester and Monroe County from 1913 to 1936. “Seen every year since and reached greatest abundance in 1930. They are apparently stationary or slightly decreasing.” He reported average counts of one to 30 birds, with a maximum count of 10,000.However, at least three million were reportedly routed from Mt. Hope Cemetery with Roman candles in 1935. (“Roman Candle Attack Drives Starlings From Mt. Hope Cemetery, Head Reports,” TU, 6 September 1935)And by the mid 1940s, an estimated 30,000 were roosting at night in late summer in the trees along Burlington Avenue in the 19th Ward, causing an infernal racket; fouling cars, yards and sidewalks; and creating a noticeable stench. The quiet neighborhood was transformed into a war zone. On late summer evenings, police patrols roamed the streets, firing shotgun blasts into the trees. Ammonia was sprayed. Smudge pots were lit. Roman candles were shot off. “It became a common sight to see sober businessmen clad in nightshirts with a stocking cap drawn low on their foreheads solemnly beating a garbage can lid with Sonny’s bat,” one 19th Ward resident wrote in the Times Union. (Marcotte, p. 32)Humans are not the only creatures discomfited by starlings. For many of our most beloved songbirds, the competition with these nonnative invaders has become a life and death struggle      Status
The Monroe County annotated list (1985) described this introduced species as an abundant, permanent resident with winter roosts numbering over 500,000.Livingston County, Fox (1998) considered this a very common permanent resident.
Occurrence
Spring: Starlings “vary regionally and individually in their migration patterns,” but they are “mostly migratory” in the Great Lakes region. (BNA 48: 3-4) On 10 March 1955 “a flock of starlings half a mile long was seen at the lake. Observers estimated it at 50,000 birds,” John Brown reported. (BA, 17 March 1955)
Spring maxima:   250,000 on 29 March 1960 (Listman) at Manitou when an “enormous flight of Starlings occurred with blackbird flights” late in the month. (KB10:24)
Summer/Breeding status: “During the breeding season they vie with our native birds for possession of any likely hole or crevice in which they can build their nests, and their sturdy bodies and sharp bills all too often bring them victory,” Beardslee and Mitchell lamented in the 1960s. (B&M, p. 355) This has come at the direct expense of such native, cavity-dwelling birds as Great Crested Flycatcher, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Tree Swallow, Purple Martin, and Eastern Bluebird. Starlings have the advantage over these birds because they initiate nesting earlier in the season, or aggressively evict birds already occupying cavities. They will nest in street light fixtures and downtown buildings as readily as in natural settings. “The starling’s use of a wide array of nesting sites and food sources, coupled with the wholesale conversion of native habitats to urban or agricultural areas give starlings an ecological opportunity which few species, either native or introduced, could better exploit,” Cabe notes. (BNA 48: 17)Not surprisingly, atlasers during the BBA projects found evidence of breeding in every block assigned to our region and were able to confirm nesting in all but a handful blocks.

Fall: Large flocks, shifting direction as if one, are common fall sights. They also invade suburban lawns in search of grubs and insects.During the fall of 1990, hundreds descended on Frank Dobson’s neighborhood in Greece. “Big flocks would fly from one lawn to another, where they would be packed, about three birds per square foot, giving the effect of a dark, squirming carpet, slowly flowing across an expanse of green.” He couldn’t help but admire the way the swarm of birds went through his yard, gleaning grubs and insects. “Shoulder to shoulder, they probed the grasses and soft earth like feeding shorebirds on a tidal mudflat. Every square inch must have been tested.” The birds ate so quickly it was hard to see what they were feeding on, however some appeared to take seeds, and at least five pulled white grubs from the ground. (Birds, 18 November 1990)
Fall maxima: 75,000 on 5 November 1975 (J. Skelly) roosting at Chili. (KB26: 38) 200,000 to 400,000 on 8 November 1998 (R. Dobson, Gillette) at Crusoe Lake. (GOS, January 1999) 100,000; 200,000 on 11, 30 November 1975 (J. and A. Foster) roosting in Mendon Ponds. (KB26: 38; GNR) 75-100,000 on 29 November 1974 (Czech) migrating at Webster. (KB 25:37)
Winter: The downtown area became a favorite winter roosting site in the 1950s. “Anyone standing in the vicinity of the Four Corners any recent evening might easily jump to the . . . conclusion that the starling is the commonest bird in the world,” John Brown wrote in March 1955. “The strident squealing that fills the night above the lights as the starlings jockey for choice roosting spots on ledges and cornices of some of the city’s older buildings is apt to give rise to an exaggerated idea of their actual numbers.” (BA, 10 March 1955) Winter maxima: 26,000 on 28 December 1969 roosting downtown. (KB20: 78) 200,000 on 27 December 1997 (S. and C. Spahn) were in Richmond, Ontario County, in the Honeoye Lakes area during the Little Lakes CBC. Another 5,000 were elsewhere in the count circle. (GOS, February 1998) 300,000 on 1 January 1976 (Shea, McAdam) at Mendon Ponds. (LG, February 1976)

Misc.
These imported pests actually found an ardent defender in Henry T. Brown, a Rochester city park engineer, who insisted in 1928 that this species, like House Sparrow, was unfairly maligned. “Last fall I had a lot of wood delivered at my house. When it was cut up, there were several pieces that were full of grubs. The starlings and the sparrows spent days feeding on these grubs,” he noted as just one example of this bird’s skills at insect control. “Instead of suggesting that the starling be destroyed, gardeners, horticulturists and others interested in trees and plants should work to protect them.” (“Starling, Sparrow, Suffer Slander, Declares Defender,” D&C, 20 March 1928)Not many birders would agree with that assessment; nonetheless, these birds are not without interest. Richard O’Hara, then an eager young birder of 14, growing up on Pavilion Street in Rochester, commented repeatedly in his 1938 diary entries on the Starling’s remarkable ability to mimic. “I again witnessed another remarkable vocal performance by the Starling,” he wrote on 2 February. “First he uttered a new sound to me. It was like the motor of a car when turned over on a cold morning. This was followed by a shrill whistle, much like that of a small boy. Then the call of the Robin and Pewee. There were a few characteristic chucks and whistles in between.”Consider how an RBA field trip to Hamlin Beach SP on 9 October 1999 was fooled. “We got excited at one point about an Eastern Meadowlark song from the grassy area to the east of the pond. However, on closer investigation it appeared to have emanated from a single European Starling in a tree (remarkable enough in itself – when was the last time you saw one Starling?)” (LG, November 1999)On many winter days, English Sparrows, Starlings and Herring Gulls were all that young O’Hara could enter for his day’s sightings. “I am rather in favor of the Starlings’ presence as they are not over-abundant yet and have much better qualities than the (English) sparrows. . .” (8 February 1938) And: “Their glossy plumage and powers of voice make them a very interesting bird.” (3 January 1938)They are not immune, however. The effects of high winds and sub-zero temperatures were amply illustrated during the harsh winter of 1976-77. After the onset of one blizzard, a Turk Hill Road resident called John Brown to report she had found three or four dead starlings “hanging head-down from pine tree branches, feet still locked around the branches.” (BA, 19 January 1977) During the previous January, which featured several dawn readings between 10 and 20 degrees below, “frozen Starlings littered the snow after the coldest nights” at the blackbird roost in Mendon Ponds. (LG, February 1976)Despite an apparent three-decade decline in numbers from 1966-1994, this is “probably the most numerous bird in New York,” Donald Windsor noted in Bull’s Birds of New York State (1998). Nor did he offer hope of relief anytime soon. “Where abandoned farms are reverting to forests, starling populations have been declining, but where both farms and forests are being subdivided into housing and commercial developments, populations are rising. Since urban development seems to be outpacing the reversion to forests, a population increase can be expected.” (Levine, pp. 447-448)
Sidebar: The Hinchey Road roost It began during the winter of 1971-1972 when a thousand starlings roosted in a half-mile of pines on the Dolomite Products property on Hinchey Road in Gates. By spring 1978, a staggering 1,875,000 Red-winged Blackbirds, 375,000 European Starlings, 150,000 Brown-headed Cowbirds and 100,000 Common Grackles were streaming in and out of the roost.“The evening flight to the roost, although constant, takes up to an hour and half on a cloudy evening,” noted Jeanne Skelly, who had become “hooked” on estimating the numbers. “In the morning it’s quite a different scene. The outpouring reaches almost frenzied proportions as the exodus reaches its peak. Several years ago, 7 to 11 minutes were all that was needed to empty the roost. On April 1, Pat Reister and Helen Steinhauser joined me at 5:30 a.m. For 20 minutes the sky was blackened with birds as they left for their feeding grounds for the day.” (LG, April 1978)From fall of ’71 to the spring of ’73 the roost was used only in winter, with starlings making up 95 percent of the total, Skelly noted. By the spring of ’74, however, Red-winged Blackbirds, cowbirds and grackles also began using the roost during their spring migration.A temporary reprieve was granted in the fall and early winter of 1975, Brown noted, when “for some reason or other” the great hordes “split up and established new roosts, one near Black Creek in Chili and a larger one in the evergreen grove at the northern edge of Mendon Ponds Park.” However, by spring 1976, the roost was re-established at the Gates site, larger than ever. Ten observers under count coordinator Gerhard Leubner estimated the flocks at 590,000 birds in early March, again mostly Starlings. (BA, 10 March 1976) And this was not sitting well with nearby residents.“They really do a job on your car if it’s sitting in the driveway,” said John Leonardo, 550 Hinchey Road.“You see them coming and it looks like a big black cloud rising,” said the wife of Gates councilman Alfred Leone, another Hinchey Road resident. “You have to see it to believe it. There are so many sitting on the branches you think the trees will tip.” (“Gates’ Birds Return, Half-million Strong,” TU, 12 March 1976)That fall, 250,000 starlings were tallied by Skelly at the roost on 21 November 1976. (LG, December 1976) The roost held as many as 550,000 on 18 December 1977. (KB 28:106)Then came the staggering figures cited above in spring 1978.By 1979, lanes were cut through the roost in a grid pattern to finally disperse the birds, once and for all. (KB 30:107)

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