{"id":1606,"date":"2022-01-14T10:03:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T15:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbannaturestore.blog\/?p=1606"},"modified":"2022-01-14T10:03:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T15:03:00","slug":"european-starlings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/2022\/01\/14\/european-starlings\/","title":{"rendered":"EUROPEAN STARLINGS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All European Starlings in North America descended from 100 birds set loose in Central Park New York in 1890.\u00a0 This was done by Shakespeare enthusiasts who wanted to have all birds mentioned by Shakespeare in America.\u00a0 Well, they succeeded with the starlings.\u00a0 There are now more than 200 million of this species ranging from Alaska to Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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European Starlings are medium sized stocky black birds with square shaped tails, triangular wings and yellow beaks.\u00a0 They also have purple and green iridescent feathers which you can see when different angles of light shine on them.\u00a0 Did you know that the feathers they grow in the fall have bold white tips which create the Starling\u2019s \u2018stars\u2019 which you can see on their breast.\u00a0 They are also great mimics who are able to make sounds of 20 different species including the Red-Tailed Hawk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Starlings are attracted to peanut halves and suet, and can descend in large flocks to feed.\u00a0 If you\u2019re trying to keep them away from your suet feeders you can use pure suet, they prefer the flavoured varieties.\u00a0 During the summer months you need to be careful as pure suet will melt in the heat.\u00a0 A caged suet feeder is another option to deter them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You will often see large flocks of these birds perched on tree tops, telephone lines, hydro towers, or gathered together in fields foraging for insects.\u00a0 Starlings can fly up to 48 miles per hour which brings me to my next point\u2026 Murmuration!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you look to the sky and see hundreds of birds flying in amazing formations, you\u2019re witnessing the starlings putting on their dazzling flight show called murmuring.\u00a0 It\u2019s as though you\u2019re watching schools of fish swimming in unison, only in this case, it\u2019s birds in the sky.\u00a0 How do they do this you might ask?\u00a0 Starlings will keep tabs on and follow the leads of the seven birds closest to them and ignore the rest.\u00a0 As well as being beautiful to watch, this also keeps them safe from predators such as peregrine falcons.\u00a0 Safety in numbers works for them.\u00a0 They will suddenly change directions at the same time creating cloud-like shapes moving through the early evening skies.\u00a0 Then, suddenly they will swoop to the ground or desired landing point and huddle together for warmth and safety.\u00a0 Murmurations occur mostly from October through March, peaking in December and January.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch for these magnificent displays throughout the rest of this month and enjoy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happy Birding,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jane Paradis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All European Starlings in North America descended from 100 birds set loose in Central Park New York in 1890.\u00a0 This was done by Shakespeare enthusiasts who wanted to have all birds mentioned by Shakespeare in America.\u00a0 Well, they succeeded with the starlings.\u00a0 There are now more than 200 million of this species ranging from Alaska […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,60,61,93,30,17],"class_list":["post-1606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uns-birding-blog","tag-birdseeds","tag-birdwatching","tag-canadawildbirding","tag-starlings","tag-unsblogs","tag-urbannaturestore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.mppdev.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}