Eugene Kridler has drawn up an eloquent 'rap sheet' for the European
Starling -- and this European would certainly second it. I have an
overwhelmingly strong inclination to regard all forms of life as equally
sacrosanct, but it's been put to the test many times by the Starling, which
at its worst seems to rival the human animal for gratuitously
anti-environmental behavior. In England I've observed quite a few
high-density Starling roosts, up close and much too personal for comfort.
One occupied a sizeable copse at such a density (impossible to make a
reasonable estimate of the number of birds, but probably six figures) that
the mass twittering was audible a mile away, the copse was practically
denuded of foliage, and its floor was a continuous seething, pullulating
mass of Starling droppings, the rotting corpses of nestlings (victims of the
overcrowding?) and the blow-fly maggots that were eating them. The smell
was perceptible almost as far away as the sound. The understory vegetation
in such roosts is suppressed for years, and the trees themselves may have
difficulty recovering. If you thought we were the only animal that will
destroy a whole stand of trees to serve its short-term interests...

My faith in the ultimate balance of nature is restored a little every time I
see a raptor take a Starling or two for lunch -- usually it's been a Merlin,
for whom they seem to be sitting ducks :).

James West


-----Original Message-----
From: Eugene Kridler <ekridler at olympus.net>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 1999 9:40 PM
Subject: Starlings and Such


Some years ago I had a colleague in the USFWS doing some research on the
Starling problem. Some of the things he told me. They consume enormous
amounts of grain in cattle feed lots. Also consume large amounts of cull
French fries also in feed lots. They roost in holly trees in such
numbers that they overferilize the trees so much that the boughs and
twigs grow long and straggly so as to be unfit for the Christmas wreath
trade.There was a place, I believe in Missouri, where they would roost
at night in some trees in such numbers that their droppings resulted in
a beautiful substrate for the organsism causing Histoplasmosis, a
disease akin to pneumonia. A scout troop was cleaning up under these
trees and many came down with histoplasmosis which baffled health
workers as to where the scouts contracted it. Most know, or should know,
that they usurp nesting sites of cavity nesting birds like Tree
Swallows, kill and adults or nestlings found within. Also harass Wood
Ducks so they abandon cavities which the Starlings take over, etc. etc.
The House Sparrow is also guilty of most of these actions. If you
sympathize with Starlings and House Sparrows, I think your sympathese
are misplaced. Ugh, I have spoken, ugh.
Euge Kridler
Sequim.Wa.