European Starling
(Sturnus vulgaris)

Starlings are associated with man-altered environments, foraging in open country on short, mown, or grazed grassland while avoiding woodlands, arid chaparral, and deserts. Starlings exploit a variety of food sources, taking invertebrates, fruits and berries, grain, and temporarily abundant food such as animal feed or garbage.

Throughout the year, Starlings associate in flocks and form communal roosts at night-even during breeding season. These roosts are larger during fall and winter, when roosts of more than a million birds are not uncommon. Starlings like to return to the same area to eat each day, usually early and late in the day, while traveling at other times in large flocks to more abundant but ephemeral food sources. Migratory behavior appeared in North American starlings shortly after their introduction; they are at least partly migratory throughout the Mid-Atlantic states and are mostly migratory in the Midwest and Great Lakes area. South of 40-degrees latitude they are nonmigratory. Starlings are diurnal migrants and move out of northern areas, following major river valleys or the coastal plain, between September and early December. Spring migration takes place from mid-February to the end of March.

These highly social birds do not defend a territory beyond their cavity nest site, but males are very protective of their mates. They compete aggressively for nesting sites and may evict the occupants of desired holes, including the woodpeckers that excavated them. They often out-compete other hole-nesting species such as Eastern Bluebirds, Tree Swallows, Great Crested Flycatchers, and woodpeckers. Starlings usually return to nest in the same site every year.

European Starlings are stocky birds with short, square-tipped tails and pointed wings. During breeding season, they can be distinguished quickly from blackbirds by their long, pointed, yellow bill; blackbirds have dark bills.

Both sexes are iridescent black. The sheen is mostly green-tinted on the back, breast, and belly; mixed green and purple on the crown; and purple on the nape and throat. Body feathers have creamy or white triangular terminal markings that are lost through wear so that by breeding season, adults are entirely glossy black, without white spots. First-year birds are more heavily spotted than adults. Following the breeding season, in late summer and fall, the yellow bill darkens to brownish gray or black in almost all birds.