Part Three: Starlings of America

Starlings taking a break on a road in Virginia

Several years ago, as I left a friend's home one afternoon before Christmas, I noticed hundreds of starlings perched quietly all around.  Starlings on lawns, on driveways, in the street, on power lines, on the roofs.  The effect was ominous and creepy, like a scene in Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds.

In fact, starlings have no business being in North America.

The story of their arrival has been told many times, but is worth a brief reprise.

The first European starlings came here in 1890.  Their importer was Eugene Schiefflin, a rich New Yorker who had set out to seed the U.S. with every bird mentioned in Shakespeare.

Schiefflin struck out with with bullfinches, chaffinches, nightingales and skylarks.  But he was successful, if you can call it that, with starlings.  He set 60 of them loose in Central Park. (Or 80, or 100 over two years; stories vary.)

Starling sightings began to be reported the next year, first a couple groups in Brooklyn and then others across the metropolitan area.  Starlings were observed killing nesting robins and bluebirds. A flock of starlings descended on a cherry tree in Connecticut and ate all its fruit in less than 15 minutes.

The starlings were successful immigrants.  By 1902 they had been spotted in New Jersey and Ossining, NY, by 1916 in Washington, DC, then in Savannah in 1917, Missouri in 1930, San Diego in 1959.  Starlings are everywhere now, numbering in the hundreds of millions, all descended from Schiefflin's original group.

If Eugene Schiefflin were alive today, a number of Americans would probably want to lynch him.

Farmers find their orchards and vineyards decimated around harvest time.

Chicken farmers and livestock ranchers have learned that starlings are fond of animal feed.  The birds fly in, eat the food set out for the animals and leave droppings behind, raising fears of avian-borne diseases.

Birders find that starlings dislocate native birds like woodpeckers in building cavities and tree holes.

Airport operators dedicate themselves to keeping starlings from roosting or nesting near runways. The birds, which fly in groups, can be sucked into jet engines on takeoffs and pose real threats of crashes.

And, when great numbers of starlings settle in a small area, their droppings encourage the development of histoplasmosis, a fungus whose spores can cause lung disease in humans.

Occasionally Americans have tried to eradicate starlings when they have settled in large numbers in particular areas.  On at least a few occasions, this has involved spreading a USDA-approved poison where the starlings feed.  (The poison is recommended because it does not pass to other animals.)

A major problem with this method is that the starlings do not die immediately.  They fly away, in flocks as usual, and expire over several days, falling to earth in great numbers, often on people's lawns.  The sight of a large plot of ground blackened by masses of dead birds can be quite upsetting.

Various groups have taken to the internet with recommendations for dealing with starlings.

Animal lovers urge filling holes in building foundations and walls and trees to discourage nesting, putting nets over budding fruit and banging pots or making other loud noises to encourage flocks to fly elsewhere.

Less squeamish experts advise removing starling nests and disposing of eggs.

One man in Northern California's wine country is among a number who recommend the shotgun.  His post is littered with many enthusiastic "BLAM"s, firearm reports meant to kill perhaps a few starlings and encourage many others to move along.

At this point, nobody seriously believes we can get rid of starlings in North America. We might as well call them natives.

Shakespeare would be amazed.  He mentioned a starling one time in one line in a minor play in 1597, and, in an indirect result, 400 years later, more than 200 million starlings are settled permanently in what he might have called the New World.

Ironically, as the starling population declines in Europe, it continues to increase in North America.

This transfer of non-native species -- birds, fish, plants -- to new environs is having effects worldwide.  I plan to discuss the situation in future posts.