Ken and Tweeters,



My experience with Starlings has been that, in general, they don't use
feeders much except when the ground is frozen, or when there is snow on the
ground.



Starlings prefer to feed by probing in the ground (preferably short grass)
for insect larvae, worms, etc. They do this even in the winter as long as
the ground isn't frozen. They also eat a lot of fruit whenever it is
available.



However, when the ground is frozen (or buried under snow), they have great
difficulty in using their normal feeding technique. They probably spend
quite a bit of time systematically looking for feeders, and they just
happened to find your suet!



For the record-Starling feeding ecology was a large part of my master's
thesis, and I actually have quite a lot of data to back up some of these
statements.



Wayne C. Weber

Delta, BC

contopus at telus.net







From: tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu
[mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Ken and
Tina
Sent: December-17-08 9:27 AM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] Starlings-How do they know?



Hey all,



I put some suet out a couple days ago to help the birds out during this
cold weather, and within a couple of hours I was feeding the starlings. I
haven't seen starlings in my yard for weeks, but they seem to be able to
smell the suet once it is in my yard. Just an observation.





Ken Grant

North Bend WA

kenandtina at comcast.net