STARLING 189 



many complaints, where nests have been built over doors or windows, 

 or behind blinds. 



Almost any old hole or cavity will serve for a nesting site, but a 

 preference seems to be shown for natural cavities in trees, or in old or 

 new holes made by the larger woodpeckers, such as the flicker or red- 

 headed woodpecker. I have seen a starling watch a flicker excavating 

 its nest hole until it reached the proper depth to suit the former, when 

 the flicker would be driven out and a starling's nest be built in the hole. 

 The flicker excavates a new hole but is again driven out ; and this pro- 

 cedure may be repeated until all the starlings in the neighborhood 

 have been supplied with homes, or until the flicker becomes discour- 

 aged and moves off to the nearest woods, where it can nest in peace. 



Nests in trees may be anywhere from 2 feet to GO feet above ground, 

 but they are usually between 10 and 25 feet up. Woodpecker holes in 

 telephone poles, fence posts, or dead snags are often occupied. Holes 

 made by hairy woodpeckers may be used occasionally, but these are 

 usually in the woods where the starlings do not like to go ; the holes 

 made by the downy woodpecker are too small. 



Starlings are serious competitors of the bluebird, tree swallow, 

 English sparrow, and other birds of that size that nest in bird boxes, 

 and to a less extent of the purple martin, but often these birds are able 

 to defend their homes. They cannot enter boxes having entrance holes 

 less than ll^ inches in diameter. Crested flycatchers nest in natural 

 cavities in old apple orchards, must meet some competition from star- 

 lings. On June 8, 1941, W. George F. Harris and I hunted through an 

 old orchard in Kaynham, Mass., where crested flycatchers and wood 

 ducks had nested for a number of years. The orchard was infested with 

 starlings, large numbers of the young, fully grown in their juvenal 

 plumage, were flying about, evidently the products of first broods, and 

 their parents were laying their second sets of eggs, one of which we 

 found. We flushed the flycatcher from her nest and were surprised 

 to find that it contained six eggs of the flycatcher and one of the star- 

 ling. Incubation had started in three of the flycatcher's eggs, the 

 other three and the starling's egg being perfectly fresh, indicating 

 that the starling had probably laid its egg in the flycatcher's nest be- 

 fore the latter's set was complete, perhaps while she was off the nest. 



While tree cavities, woodpecker holes, and bird boxes are favorite 

 nesting sites, the starling loves to nest in any convenient cavity it can 

 find in or on barns, outbuildings, deserted houses or schools, under 

 eaves of houses or those of dormer windows, about the cornices or in 

 the towers of buildings in cities, and in church steeples or belfries. 

 Mr. Forbush (1927) writes: "By prying off a plank of the floor above 

 a chime of bells in a Long Island church-tower I was enabled to enter 

 the chamber above, where about thirty nests of Starlings were occu- 



