Thanks for the info on starlings, wondered what your thoughts are on something we’ve noticed. We recently moved to the other side of a village in South Derbyshire. In the previous house and garden we regularly had a group of starlings, they would visit the bird bath especially of an evening. We would also get robins, blue tits and pigeons there. We are now on the other side of the village and get no starlings here - we brought the bird bath with us. Still get the other birds, along with great tits and crow, but no starlings! There are a lot of crows on this side of the village, that is another key bird difference.. The distance between the two properties is less than a mile.
I heard starlings once that sounded like a jazz band. They all took different parts. It was lovely. Here in Toronto Canada, potatoes won't be ready for harvesting till autumn. Only advice I can give is to keep topping up the soil as you don't want the taters exposed to light.
Thanks for the interesting peeks into starling world. I have the Black-collared starling in my garden (Chiang Mai), large numbers making something of hubbub in the tree outside my bedroom until my neighbours petitioned me to lop off the branches they sat on. They're mostly pretty strident, but the last ones I recorded were two that seemed to be having a conversation on my garden wall.
Love starlings. My first murmuration was over a housing estate in Kettering, completely unexpected. Last month, each evening, I would see a fragile version of one with only about a hundred birds. I was sad that they were so few but uplifted that still they did as they were born. Wonderful birds, do under-rated.
'Do birds taste in the way we do?' – hmm, unsure, as I don't have cannibalistic tendencies. Sorry, terrible joke for a Weds morning!
As educational as ever Charlie - I hadn’t realised Starlings were mimics! M
Thanks for the info on starlings, wondered what your thoughts are on something we’ve noticed. We recently moved to the other side of a village in South Derbyshire. In the previous house and garden we regularly had a group of starlings, they would visit the bird bath especially of an evening. We would also get robins, blue tits and pigeons there. We are now on the other side of the village and get no starlings here - we brought the bird bath with us. Still get the other birds, along with great tits and crow, but no starlings! There are a lot of crows on this side of the village, that is another key bird difference.. The distance between the two properties is less than a mile.
I heard starlings once that sounded like a jazz band. They all took different parts. It was lovely. Here in Toronto Canada, potatoes won't be ready for harvesting till autumn. Only advice I can give is to keep topping up the soil as you don't want the taters exposed to light.
Thanks for the interesting peeks into starling world. I have the Black-collared starling in my garden (Chiang Mai), large numbers making something of hubbub in the tree outside my bedroom until my neighbours petitioned me to lop off the branches they sat on. They're mostly pretty strident, but the last ones I recorded were two that seemed to be having a conversation on my garden wall.
Love starlings. My first murmuration was over a housing estate in Kettering, completely unexpected. Last month, each evening, I would see a fragile version of one with only about a hundred birds. I was sad that they were so few but uplifted that still they did as they were born. Wonderful birds, do under-rated.
Good luck with the spuds!
Such a wonderful sound, used to have loads, not any more. Why?