STARLING 199 



Behavior. — Starlings are shy, timid, nervous birds. It is almost 

 impossible to approach them within gunshot range in open country. 

 If, when they are feeding in a cherry tree, a gun is fired at them, the 

 survivors will fly away and not soon return, more scared than hurt as 

 a rule. It is impossible to exterminate them, or even materially re- 

 duce their numbers. Their caution is their salvation. I often watch 

 them feeding on my front lawn, which extends unprotected to the 

 sidewalk; usually a person walking by, or certainly one stopping to 

 look at them, will send them flying up into the trees; even a passing 

 vehicle may produce the same effect. 



On the ground they walk with short, mincing steps and a waddling 

 gait on their rather short legs, running or hopping occasionally if 

 in a hurry; they do not seem to forage systematically but wander 

 over the lawn in a haphazard manner. Milton P. Skinner (1928) 

 says that when a flock is moving forward, "Starlings have the peculiar 

 habit of hopping up in the air from eight to twelve inches and forward 

 at the same time a foot or more. These hops are rather frequent, four 

 per cent or more of the flock being in the air at the same time." It 

 is interesting to watch a large flock feeding on some wide expanse of 

 grassland; the whole flock seems to progress by "rolling" over the 

 ground, all moving in the same direction, those in the rear ranks rising, 

 flying over the crowd and settling in front of the slowly moving 

 ranks, thus securing the first chance to feed on fresh ground. 



Starlings show to best advantage in flight; their ordinary short 

 flights sometimes seem slow and feeble, but, when well under way 

 and going somewhere, the flight is strong, swift and direct, with rapid 

 strokes of the short, pointed wings, interspersed with periods of 

 sailing on stiff pinions. Miss Cooke (1928) says that "they are swift 

 flyers, at times traveling as fast as 49 miles an hour." Everett W. 

 Jameson (1942) timed the speed of a starling that flew parallel to 

 his automobile for over half a mile in still air at 55 miles an hour. 



The spectacular flight maneuvers of a large flock of starlings are 

 most remarkable, and they always attract the enthusiastic admiration 

 of the beholder, as they wheel, turn, and swing into fantastic forma- 

 tions with marvelous precision, with no apparent leader but all re- 

 sponding as if one individual, rivaling in their coordinated movements 

 the flocking instincts of some of the smaller shorebirds that we like 

 to watch whirling in clouds over the marshes. Many writers have 

 referred to this interesting flight, but the following words of Dr. 

 Chapman (1925) are fully as good as any : 



A thousand, five thousand, ten thousand birds mount to the sky, animated by 

 one impulse — the floclc becomes a ball symmetrical as a globe in outline ; sud- 

 denly, w^th no suggestion of disorder, it lengthens to an ellipse which a moment 

 later, narrowing in the middle and concentrating at the ends, simulates a dumb- 

 bell in form. Again a change, and a dusky snake undulates across the heavens 

 only to telescope on itself and become a ball again. 



