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Does anyone else like starlings?

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  • PyraPyra Posts: 152
    Since it's raining, they're all out on my lawn this morning. I counted about 40 over the grass, the trees and the fences. 
    They may be in decline nationally. But not round here. 


  • HotwaxHotwax Posts: 51
    We rarely get starlings here any more. I love the scruffy blackbird. Here's a photo of TR (tailless robin). Don’t know how he lost his tail, but he seems to manage ok without one.
  • AllyblueeyesAllyblueeyes Posts: 420
    AnniD said:
    Pigeons for me. With the hot weather we have had the bedroom windows open, and they start that "Me knee hurts Betty" business as soon as it gets light. (Having said that, l just can't hear "Me knee hurts Betty" no matter how hard l try).
    Two of them brought their offspring to sit on the pergola the other morning. 
    "See those windows Junior ? Sit here and make a racket as soon as it gets light. Then fly down to that birdbath and fill it full of scum (and worse) until you bung up the solar fountain. Job done".

    Starlings used to drive my nan mad. She'd be up and down banging on the front room window and they'd take no notice whatsoever. Ironically they were probably doing her a favour by eating the leatherjackets.

    Blackbirds on the other hand, love 'em. This is Scruff.  What a character. 

    What a beauty @AnniD 😍
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    A little flock of starlings were having a bath in the puddles on the golf course when I was out for a walk earlier.  :)
    They can be a messy, squawking nuisance though. 
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • AnniDAnniD Posts: 12,566
    edited June 2020
    @Allyblueeyes , He certainly is ! He would sit on the window box outside the kitchen window looking in at me, and then move to the back door handle to make sure l had suet pellets in my hand before I was allowed out.
    He hasn't been around for a day or two,  l hope he is alright. 
  • LiriodendronLiriodendron Posts: 8,328
    edited June 2020
    Yes, love starlings.   :)  We very rarely saw them in our last garden in Yorkshire but now they nest in our hedge - one nest full has just fledged, with 5 young bumbling about, yelling for food and chasing off Mr Spotty, who is I think an orphaned young starling with a lot of white feathers on his front.  He was king of the squirrel-proof fat cake feeder until this morning... now he's searching for lawn grubs.

    I love the way the adults sit on a branch jabbering away while I weed underneath.  Such a joyful sound.   :)
    Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
  • VoyagerxpVoyagerxp Posts: 651
    I like Starlings when they scrap each other when visiting the bird feeders but sometimes they devour all the food especially the nuts and leave none for the others. Well except the wood pigeons that have a field day with it raining food from above. 
  • Blue OnionBlue Onion Posts: 2,995
    Magpies.  I put out suet feeders especially for a local pair, who raised a clutch of three chicks.  Goodness though, the racket outside my open bedroom window each morning.  I get up at 5am each morning to slam it shut and crawl back into bed to continue my sleep.  My husband was laughing at them yesterday morning because they were all sitting around on our wire patio furniture making that squabbling racket, like a rowdy argumentative Italian family.  (Now, nothing against Italians.. but being stereotypical (from my first-hand travel observations) they tend to talk loudly all at the same time, I have no idea how a conversation works..  I wish I spoke Italian just to discover the answer.). 
    Utah, USA.
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