A flock of noisy, black-colored birds was active this past weekend at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I initially thought they were blackbirds or grackles, but a closer look showed them to be European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), a species introduced into the US from Europe by Shakespeare enthusiasts late in the nineteenth century.
I was intrigued when I saw the reference to Shakespeare and learned the following information about the history of starlings in the United States from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website:
“All the European Starlings in North America descended from 100 birds set loose in New York’s Central Park in the early 1890s. The birds were intentionally released by a group who wanted America to have all the birds that Shakespeare ever mentioned. It took several tries, but eventually the population took off. Today, more than 200 million European Starlings range from Alaska to Mexico, and many people consider them pests.”
To be or not to be? Whether you like them or not, it looks like European Starlings are here to stay. As for me, I find the dotted pattern on these birds to be quite attractive.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Wonderful captures, Mike. They are gorgeous creatures.
Great photo, Mike. We have lots of these little guys around the neighborhood.
I found your history of how they arrived very interesting.
No wonder they are called starlings…
I find their song fascinating, I think they are often out sung by song birds like thrushes but when you actually listen to a starling in isolation, they have an incredibly varied range of “tunes”…and you can’t beat the spectacle of a murmuration of starlings, do you get those around your way?
I think that we do get murmurations of starlings, though I am not sure how big a flock has to be to qualify as a murmuration. The next time that I see starlings, I’m going to have to pay attention to their songs.
Actually, I can’t believe I ever considered starlings to be black. When you see them up close, feathers glinting in the sun, they are among the handsomest birds in America.
Beautiful birds! And thanks for sharing the history of how they ended up in North America. I didn’t know that.
I am not really a birder, but in trying to identify the birds that I photograph, I occasionally come across some interesting info that it is fun to share.