Starlings have greatly increased in numbers during the last forty years in our islands, and there is no season of the year when flocks, great or small, cannot be seen. Late breeders keep together until far on in May, and the broods of those that commenced housekeeping operations early in April flock together directly they meet each other in the fields. Thus I have known the same nesting hole occupied twice in one season, a fact which has given rise to the belief entertained by some people that the species is double-brooded.
ADULT STARLING IN WINTER.
When flocked, these birds have favourite roosting places, to which they resort in tens of thousands every night with the utmost regularity. Sometimes they select a reed bed to sleep in, and do great damage by too many birds alighting on the same stems and breaking them down. Before finally settling for the night, they perform a great number of wonderful aërial evolutions, especially during fine weather. Whilst sitting in one black mass on every available branch and bough, producing an indescribable din by all chissicking and chattering to each other at the same time, they will suddenly become quite silent, and leaping into the air with a noise just like that of a truck-load of small coals being shot into the hold of a steamer, mount to a considerable height, and commence to wheel and turn as if by some magically communicated command.
At one moment they look like a thick black cloud, and at another like a long trail of grey smoke. Every turn and twist, opening and closing of the whole flock, is performed with a grace and precision of movement which is wonderful to behold.
Starlings nest in holes in trees, rocks, and old ruins; under the roofs of houses, in the thatch of ricks and outbuildings, and sometimes under large stones on steep hillsides. I have also known them breed amongst sticks forming the base of an Osprey’s eyrie which was occupied by young ones. A year or two ago I found an open-topped nest containing chicks in an evergreen, where a Blackbird or Thrush might have been expected to breed. Green Woodpeckers are constantly turned out of their laboriously dug holes by members of this species in search of suitable nesting quarters.
The nest is a loosely-put-together structure composed of straws, rootlets, and bits of moss, with a lining of hair, feathers, and occasionally a lock of wool. I have often found nests, however, with no kind of lining at all except straws.
The eggs number from four to six, of a uniform pale blue colour. This species has a curious habit of dropping its eggs about on lawns and in fields during the early part of the breeding season.
Young Starlings, in their first coats of feathers, are greyish-brown, and lack entirely the beautiful purple and steel-blue sheen which gives their parents such a handsome appearance when the sun is shining upon them.