Thursday, February 23, 2012

Backyard Bird Watch III

European Starling

In winter this bird is dark blue with white speckles. In the summer they are jet black.
The pattern on their wings look amazingly like the shields on the "bat-mobile".
Although attractive this time of year, these birds are considered invasive.
They arrive in hordes and destroy crops and compete with native birds.
When this picture was taken there were at least fifty more on the ground 
snapping up corn kernels, bird seed and attacking the suet feeders in a frenzy! 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Non-natives, indeed. I saw a table of them recently at a local coffee shop, sneering at the other customers and chirping in what sounded like French.

NMBill

Gianni said...

Why do the French use letters they don't pronounce?!