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Starlings

Guernsey Donkey2Guernsey Donkey2 Posts: 6,713
in Wildlife gardening
Yes, I know they are "only" starlings, but their antics have been entertaining today.  Two families with lots of squawking youngsters, just a few of them in this picture.

Posts

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    We love starlings ... a pair is nesting next door and the very handsome male sits on the roof whistling and chattering to us every morning ... just magical 😊 


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    I don’t like starlings for the reason that the whole cloud, hundreds of them land and scoff all the food, they stay for months, it costs me a fortune,  I know they need to eat, but the little ones don’t stand a chance. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    We only get the one family in the summer. In the winter their pals all come along too, but they only seem interested in the suet-based food ... I put some on the ground for them and they leave the feeders alone ... I imagine that where you are @Lyn  you get huge flicks of them in the winter, so a bit different to here. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    I'm with @Lyn, we have thousands of them descend on the garden and fields nearby. Entertaining when their flying but not so when they bully all the regular garden birds.
    Devon.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    They’re getting the chafer grubs out of your grass 😉 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • matt_fendermatt_fender Posts: 169
    Dovefromabove said:
    They’re getting the chafer grubs out of your grass 😉 
    Our lawn is evidently riddled with chafer grubs and I've incredibly impressed over the last few weeks at just how good the starlings are at finding them. They'll descend in a gang of four or five and and work the lawn, and each starling seems to get a grub every thirty seconds or so, grab a total of two and then fly off (I assume they are feeding young now, hence the relentless grub gathering). It's good to see but it does make you wonder just how many grubs are down there..
  • herbaceousherbaceous Posts: 2,318
    They move across my 'lawn' in a line and remind me of policemen searching a field  :D
    "The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."  Sir Terry Pratchett
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