Don wrote:

"I love starlings and pigeons - they make excellent lure birds for
use in
capturing sharpies and Coop's for banding!"

Starlings are definitely underrated on this side of the Atlantic
:-))) - I think the place would be better off without them though,
apart form their obvious usefullness !!!.

In the UK birds migrate northwards from central England to the
northeast of Scotland - Caithness and Aberdeenshire. Good
agricultural areas so food is pretty abundant. When I was at college
in Aberdeen, the banding group there had one Starling fanatic -
banding about 10,000 a year. Many a night was spent, with other
similarly deranged banders, myself included, crawling around the
attics of derelict buildings and fish smoking houses (Kipper Kilns)
banding 100's of birds per night. Ah them were the days !!!!

He got some pretty interesting movements - lots of birds come to the
UK in fall, particularly from exotic places like Estonia, Latvia,
Poland and Russia.

A lot of work has been done by the Dutch. They showed that Starlings
are pretty smart when it comes to optimising their foraging time when
feeding chicks, getting just the right balance in the diet to help
their chicks grow fastest. They trade off feeding chicks
leatherjackets,high in protein - but in quantities, too rich for the
chicks (causes digestive problems), against lower food value bugs.
They also decide where to forage before they leave the nest, areas
are selected based on when they last used an area, the likelihood of
a new hatch of insects, etc.

Starlings also line their nests with plants, chosen for their insect
repelling properties, to keep down numbers of parasites.

The list of interesting things about them is endless, however I can't
think of any more :-)

Stuart
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Stuart MacKay McCaw Cellular Communications
Consultant Developer The Plaza at Yarrow Bay
Axys V3 10230 NE Points Drive

ph. (206) 803-4909 Kirkland, WA

fax (206) 803-7405 98033

stuart.mackay at mccaw.com
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