>Which prompts me to pose the question my non-birding husband keeps asking
>me: "So doesn't anything eat starlings?!" He's not usually satisfied with
>the comment about peregrines and accipiters (he's seen a Cooper's hawk
>snatch a house sparrow off the lawn outside his window), and I have to
>shrug and agree that there aren't enough of them to make a dent in the
>starling population. What "controls" their numbers in Great Britain/Europe?
>Or are they just as numerous there as they are here now?
>
>-- Janet Hardin

If anything "controls" starlings in Europe, it's certainly not raptors. I
think bird populations are rarely much affected by predators on the adults.
Nest predators are another story, as are brood parasites at times. Nest
contents are a lot more vulnerable than adults. Too few adult birds are
eaten by raptors or other predators for control to be an issue, although
raptors measurably reduce some prey populations (as in one study of Merlins
eating Dunlins in California). And, of course, starlings nest in holes, so
they have few if any nest predators and no brood parasites (except
occasionally other starlings).

Starlings are quite abundant in Europe, although I don't know if they reach
the numbers they do here. They would probably have been limited by food
resources, as many animals are, but humans have made the world
starling-friendly, both by food crops, lawns full of craneflies, garbage
dumps, etc., and by providing zillions of crevices for nest sites.

We think of starlings as New World invaders, but in fact good ol' Sturnus
vulgaris is spreading eastward, as you would guess facilitated by human
settlements. In parts of Russia it meets the similarly successful
White-cheeked or Gray Starling (Sturnus cineraceus) advancing from the
east, and I believe intense competition is occurring for breeding sites.
First reported from Japan in 1969, it is now a regular winter visitor to
the southern parts of that country and has occurred all the way north to
Hokkaido. So the "European" Starling now occurs from Fairbanks to Okinawa!

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 206-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 206-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416