202 BIRDS OF ALABAMA 



Many kinds of wild fruits and berries enter its diet, including 

 pokeberries, mulberries, hackberries, huckleberries, grapes, 

 and the fruit of the holly, sour gum, catbrier, dogwood, red 

 cedar, palmetto, papaw, and red bay. Some corn, oats, and 

 wheat are consumed, but this is chiefly waste grain gleaned 

 in winter. Carrion is frequently taken, as well as crawfish 

 and a few insects, as grasshoppers and ants. 



STARLINGS: Family Sturnidae. 

 STARLING : Stumtis vulgaris mdgaHs Linnaeus. 



State records. — The first record of the starling in Alabama 

 is that given by Peter A. Brannon of a bird killed near Mont- 

 gomery, January 14, 1918, by being blown against a barn 

 during a rainstorm. The specimen has been mounted and 

 placed in the Museum of the Department of Archives and 

 History.* On January 4, 1920, near the junction of the 

 Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, 2 specimens were shot from a 

 flock estimated to contain 150 or 200 birds.f In view of this 

 bird's rapid extension of range it seems probable that it will 

 soon become established in the State. 



General habits. — The starling lives both in cities and in the 

 open country, nesting in crevices of buildings, bird boxes, 

 or hollow trees. It is strongly gregarious, traveling for a 

 large part of the year in flocks, often of considerable size. 

 During late summer and fall the birds resort nightly to roosts 

 in shade trees in towns or cities or sometimes in a cattail 

 marsh. As winter approaches they abandon these roosts and 

 seek shelter in church towers, barns, or other buildings. 



Nesting begins in the latitude of Washington about the 

 middle of April and two broods are usually raised in a season. 

 Chapman describes the call of the male as "a high, clear, 

 rather long-drawn, ascending whistle" and its song as "a 

 choking, gasping, guttural soliloquy, with imitations of the 

 notes of other birds interspersed.''^ 



*Brannon, P. A., The Auk, vol. 35, p. 224, 1918. 

 tBrannon, P. A., The Auk, vol. 37, p. 298, 1920. 



^Chapman, F. M., Ha'ndbook of Birds of Eastern North America, rev. ed., p. 856, 

 1912. 



