Respect, avian bro!

The European Starling is one of the most hated birds in North America. According to Wikipedia, 60 starlings were released in New York's Central Park in 1890 by one Eugene Schieffelin, a crackpot bird lover who wanted to introduce all birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays into the United States. The experiment succeeded only too well.

Today, there are 150 million starlings in the United States, and their only redeeming trait is that they don't need fossil fuels to thrive!

According to Wiki, "Starlings are among the worst nuisance species in North America. The birds travel in enormous flocks; pose danger to air travel; disrupt farms; displace native birds; and roost on city blocks. Corrosive droppings on structures cause hundreds of millions of dollars of yearly damage. In 2008 the U.S. government poisoned, shot or trapped 1.7 million, the most of any nuisance species."

Respect, avian bro. But sure, something tells me Sturnus vulgaris won't replace the Bald-headed Eagle as the U.S. national bird any time soon...

Personally, I find Starlings weirdly sinister, due to their noises which I associate with really bad horror movies. They make exactly the kind of noise the director puts on before some zombie or mutant creature show up behind the next bush, going BOOO. How apt.

For a very long time, I assumed Starlings were actually Blackbirds, apparently a common mistake in Sweden, where both species are moderately abundant in pretty much the same milieux (nothing like 150 million, though). But then, I'm a bad, near-sighted bird-watcher!

I'm sure I'd never confuse a Starling and a Bald-Headed Eagle, however.