Bird Profile

European Starling

A flock of starlings can strip a suet cage in a morning and evict a flicker from its hole in an afternoon. They are also among the most accomplished vocal mimics in North America. Both facts belong in the same profile.

The European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is a chunky, short-tailed, long-billed bird about 8.5 inches (22 cm) long that arrives at feeders in flocks and works through suet, peanuts and soft food at a speed nothing native can match. It was introduced to North America in 1890 and 1891 and, like the House Sparrow, it has no protection under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

It is also, by any fair measure, an extraordinary animal: a mimic that can reproduce a Red-tailed Hawk scream, a car alarm and a human word, and a flock bird whose winter murmurations are one of the great spectacles in North America.

This profile covers identification in all the plumages that confuse people, how starlings got here, what they eat, the feeder designs that shut them out, and how nest box hole size decides whether they can touch your birds at all.

How to identify a European Starling#

Shape first, because starling plumage changes more than most people expect. The body is stocky and short-tailed, the bill is long and straight, and the wings come to a point, giving a flying starling a distinctive four-pointed star outline. On the ground it walks quickly rather than hopping, which separates it instantly from sparrows and finches.

Fall and winter adults are heavily covered in crisp white or buff spots, with a dark gray-black bill. This is the plumage most people call "some kind of spotted blackbird."

Spring and summer adults look like an entirely different bird. The pale spot tips wear away over winter, leaving glossy black plumage shot with purple and green iridescence, and the bill turns bright yellow. Males show a blue-gray base to the bill, females a pinkish one.

Juveniles are the ones that generate the most confused emails: plain mouse-gray or dusty brown all over, with a dark bill and a pale throat. Through mid and late summer you often see gray juveniles alongside spotted molting birds and glossy adults, all in the same flock.

Against the birds it flocks with: the Common Grackle is longer, has a long keel-shaped tail and a pale eye; the Brown-headed Cowbird has a short conical finch-like bill and a plain brown head on the male; the Red-winged Blackbird has a longer tail and a slimmer, pointed bill.

How starlings got to North America#

Roughly 100 birds were released in Central Park in New York City in 1890 and 1891 by a group dedicated to establishing European species in America. The often-repeated claim that the aim was to bring every bird mentioned in Shakespeare to the continent has been questioned by historians, so treat it as folklore rather than fact.

From that release the species spread across the continent in about 60 years, reaching the Pacific Coast by the 1950s and Alaska after that. North American numbers now run into the tens of millions.

The costs are real and well documented: crop damage, fouled feedlots, and a role in aviation bird strikes that includes one of the deadliest such accidents in US history, at Boston in 1960. None of that is the fault of the birds, which were doing what a hole-nesting, flock-feeding generalist does when handed a continent of pasture, lawn and building cavities.

What starlings eat and how they feed#

Starlings have a feeding trick most songbirds lack. They insert the closed bill into turf or a crevice and then force it open, a movement called gaping, with eye muscles that rotate the eyes forward to see into the gap they have made. That is how a flock strip-mines a lawn for beetle grubs and leatherjackets in spring.

At feeders they want soft, fatty, high-value food that needs no shelling.

Feeder designs that shut starlings out#

Starlings are heavy, poor at clinging upside down for long, and reluctant to squeeze through tight spaces. Every effective tactic uses one of those three facts.

• Upside-down suet feeders, where the cake is reachable only from below. Downy Woodpeckers, chickadees and nuthatches feed there without hesitation. Details in suet feeders.
• Caged feeders with mesh around 1.5 inches (4 cm). This is the most reliable single fix and it works for seed and suet alike. See caged and selective feeders.
• Short perches and no trays. Take the wide catch tray off any tube and keep perches under three quarters of an inch (2 cm).
• Retire the open platform for a couple of weeks during a flock surge. An open platform feeder is a starling buffet, and there is no version of it they cannot use.
• Change the food to safflower, nyjer and in-shell sunflower, which starlings mostly ignore.

Mimicry and voice#

A starling's song is a long, unstructured stream of whistles, rattles, clicks and imitations, often delivered from a rooftop or wire with the throat feathers ruffled and the wings twitching. Males with larger repertoires tend to do better with females, which is the usual driver behind this kind of vocal complexity.

The imitations are the interesting part. Common models include Killdeer, Northern Flicker, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Red-tailed Hawk and quail, plus mechanical sounds: car alarms, phone ringtones, backup beepers. Captive starlings reproduce human speech clearly enough that Mozart is said to have kept one that sang a phrase from his own work.

The practical consequence for a backyard birder: if you hear a hawk calling repeatedly from a suburban roofline in April, look before you conclude anything.

Nesting and cavity competition#

Starlings nest in cavities: woodpecker holes, dryer vents, gaps behind signage, streetlight housings, and any nest box with a hole big enough. They start early, often before native cavity nesters are ready, and they will evict occupants.

The entrance hole is the whole game.

For standard backyard boxes the answer is simple: build or buy 1.5 inch (3.8 cm) holes and starlings are a non-issue. The species that genuinely suffer are the ones needing larger cavities, especially the Northern Flicker and the Red-headed Woodpecker. Purple Martin landlords manage starlings constantly, which is why martin houses have crescent-shaped or starling-resistant entrances. Full sizing tables are in nest boxes: sizing and siting.

Population and status#

Starlings remain abundant across North America, but the trend here has been downward for several decades, and the decline is steeper in their native range: British and northern European populations have fallen far enough for the species to carry a conservation listing there, largely attributed to changes in farming that reduced the soil invertebrates young starlings depend on.

That does not change what you should do in your yard. It does mean the honest framing is a bird that is out of place here rather than a bird that is inherently bad, and it argues for exclusion over anything more drastic.

A starling-resistant setup#

• Caged tube feeder with in-shell sunflower or safflower, perches under three quarters of an inch.
• Upside-down or caged suet feeder holding plain rendered fat, no fruit or seed inclusions.
• No open tray, no ground scatter, no bread, no cracked corn.
• Every nest box on the property fitted with a 1.5 inch (3.8 cm) entrance, checked weekly through spring.
• Feeders taken down for one to two weeks if a flock settles in, then restarted with the menu above. Woodpeckers and chickadees return within days, as covered in how to attract woodpeckers.