Got Starling?

European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris)

Nice picture. Are they noisy? The picture reminded me that in a few weeks time we are going to have very noisy overnight guests in the trees on their way down south.

X

Yes, that was an exceptionally good picture. Sort of reminds me of an Alfred Hitchcock set to film a remake of "The Birds".

Yes, they're incredibly noisy. They are a lot of things.

They descend on our properties around here by the thousands. They are the reason why I have to go out to broadcast seed in the middle of a snowstorm so that some of my seed will be blanketed and have a chance at germinating. Last year they stripped me clean of hundreds of dollars of seed even when I went out under the cloak of darkness to spread it by hand.

The existence of these birds is beyond frustrating to me and most other people who garden for wildlife around where I live.

Organize with your neighbors and find local roosts like this one. If they are chased from one roost they go to the next. Everyone gets a small game license and a shotgun. There is no closed season and no bag limit. Position two or more shooters under unoccupied roost sites, hidden. Move in on a roost that is being established. They will flush to one of the nearby roosts where the hidden shooters are setup. Hundreds can be eliminated in a day using this method. It is the most effective way to eliminate large numbers of European Starlings in problem areas.

My best guess is that there were thousands of them. Our Public Health Dept is involved now which is a very good thing. I believe the Public Health Dept is mostly using large traps but they do have other methods available to them that are not available to the general public. Some people around here have modified your approach. They seed their lawns and shoot out the windows of their homes using high powered air guns with laser sights. We don't get hundreds and hundreds but we make a dent. Not much more one can do in my area but Starlings do seem to love to descend upon any lawn that has just been seeded and they will keep coming back as long as one keeps seeding their lawn.

Just one comment, raptor rehab centers can really use the dispatched Starlings so if anyone goes this route, please put them in baggies and freeze them. The BBs aren't lead any longer so they don't pose a threat to the environment or to any higher order predators.

BBs are copper. Pellets are lead!

In my area, they aren't allowed to sell lead pellets any longer. BBs and pellets are both non-lead. We were originally concerned with lead poisoning in waterfowl so I think our pellets might be steel now while our BBs are copper. Valid point because other people may still have access to pellets that are lead. Lead is an extraordinarily toxic element that poses hazards to human health as well as to the environment.

NOPE!!!

Anybody who wants to do SERIOUS marksman, pellet, target, shooting uses lead. It may not be available at your local Wal-Mart, but EVERY SERIOUS pellet is made of pure lead. In fact, the last pellets that I bought at Wal-Mart were made of lead. BBs are now made of steel, with a copper coating. Lead may not be available in your state, over the counter, but ALL competition and any precision shooter MUST use lead! I know, been there, done that.

You know how much I LUV you, but I'm throwin' lead! With a precision air rifle there is no other choice.

We're throwing copper babe! Copper coated steel that would be based on what you say about BBs.

That is a great photo, Equil; reminds me of the years we lived up in northern VA/metro Washington, DC. Clouds of starlings would descend, looking very much like a Hitchcock remake, turning the lawn into a moving black mass: made an ungodly racket and left an ungodly mess in their wake. Then there were the HOSPs, who killed the nesting bluebirds and their young. Between the two species, I got a very quick and thorough lesson on the damage done by non-native birds; we had few to no native birds visiting, thanks to them. I found that live-trapping worked very well for HOSPs, but not at all for starlings (at least not for me). It was illegal to "discharge a firearm" there, even an air gun, or I'd have been sorely tempted to try it with the starlings. At least when targeting starlings, you know you won't accidentally hit a desirable (native) species: there are none around when the starlings descend en masse.

We had a pair of European starlings move into the neighborhood last year. Prior to their arrival, I was able to grow my culinary herbs on the deck. Now they strip almost every fragrant herb bare. They ran off with the genovese basil, the english thyme, the parsley! Now really......couldn't they share?

Sorry, garden_mermaid, but I don't think they're familiar with the concept of sharing....