Throughout the winter, my pre-work chores at home have been accompanied by the occasional chattering conversation of the resident starlings. Now that spring is almost here, that quiet chuntering of practised notes is building into a well-rehearsed symphony, drawing on all elements of their complex repertoire of notes and phrases. Starlings are close relatives of Mynas and share their ability to mimic sounds. ‘My’ resident starlings, true to their North Pennine roots, draw some of their lyrical inspiration from the ground-nesting waders who will soon be returning here to breed. As such, as I go about my jobs, I listen to the call of lapwing, redshank, and curlew descending from the barn beams above me, interspersed with the starlings’ remixed version that includes their own whistles, clicks and whirrs.

The UK’s resident species of starling, common starling Sturnus vulgaris is anything but common in looks. Other members of the family Sturnidae include the appropriately named ‘superb’ and ‘glossy’ starlings and the equally ostentatious Hildebrandt’s and blue-eared starlings, all of whom live in warmer climes. They and other members of the wider starling family are generally a showy bunch and our common starling doesn’t let the side down. Admittedly, the newly fledged youngsters of the year are rather drab brown, making up for their lack of visual impact with a lot of noise. But, as with many bird species, it’s the adult males who pull out all the stops. Their dark, glossy plumage is peppered with white flecks but, by the time breeding season arrives, many of these pale feather tips have worn off, particularly from their long throat feathers, unveiling iridescent shades of green and purple. As the male sings, these throat feathers are puffed out, glistening and shining as they catch the light. This visual display provides the backdrop to the male’s lengthy and varied song repertoire, drawn from his many sources of inspiration and mimicry, and announced to all from a suitably prominent podium.

Most males are monogamous, paring up with a single female and sharing the load of feeding their brood of chicks. However, they are a social species, nesting colonially if they can and so polygamy is also common, with one male having two or even more female partners. My memories of working on the species at Wytham Farm in Oxfordshire include watching one particularly ambitious male attempting to defend a total of six neighbouring nextboxes. His endeavours were short-lived as the realisation dawned that if he was to maintain an effective patrol of that size of territory, he would never get an opportunity to feed or rest. I don’t recall the final outcome but he certainly tempered his ambition!

Starlings are omnivorous and seasonal changes and geographical variation in their diet reflect abundance and availability of suitable food sources. However, during the breeding season, their diet is predominantly invertebrates – a study conducted in the 1930s, which recorded food items brought to nestlings, recorded over 230 species of invertebrates, comprising earthworms, snails, woodlice, centipedes, millipedes, grasshoppers, earwigs, beetles, bees, ants, flies and spiders. Despite the geographical variation in diet, there appears to be a staple food-type that is common to all – Coleoptera (beetle) and Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) larvae. Here in the UK, one of the main food items is the leatherjacket, larva of the cranefly, or ‘daddy long-legs’ Tipula paludosa. Many of these, and other beetle and Lepidoptera larvae live on or just under the soil surface and the starling’s bill and associated musculature has evolved to support a particular technique of probing that allows them to capture these food items. Maintaining access to areas of short vegetation, where these soil invertebrates are most accessible to starlings and other wildlife that share a similar diet, is a welcome addition to any wildlife garden, complementing adjacent areas of tall vegetation where plants are allowed to flower and set seed.

This ability to adapt their diet to make the most of seasonal or regional abundance has not only contributed to starlings’ past success but has also earned them a reputation as agricultural pests. Tales of thousands-strong flocks descending on orchards to strip ripening fruit or plundering feed intended for in-wintered stock led to dramatic measures to control starlings. Fortunately, records of winter roosts being blown up with dynamite or tackled with flame-throwers are now tales of the past. However, the large aggregations of starlings that occur during their winter roosting can also present a risk of disease transmission due to the accumulation of droppings and so many non-lethal methods of control, including netting to exclude them, or noise to scare them, is sometimes deployed both in urban and rural settings.

Despite being encouraged to move on from places where they cause a demonstrable problem, there are still plenty of large roosts to be found. During winter, UK numbers are bolstered by birds from Russia, Scandinavia and other parts of the north-east continent. They move around in foraging flocks during the daytime but congregate in even bigger numbers at night, roosting in reed beds, plantations, or in city centres. The pre-roost gathering has become a much sought-after spectacle as thousands, or hundreds of thousands of birds perform their dusk ‘murmuration’. How they manage to coordinate has been the subject of much theorising, with perceived wisdom being that each bird takes its cue from its immediate neighbours. It’s an approach that works most of the time, but the one in front has been known to get it wrong which can lead to disastrous consequences if there happens to be a tall barn wall in the way!

Sadly, as with so many of our ‘common’ bird species, our resident breeding starling population has declined significantly in recent decades and it is now red-listed. Data collated and analysed by the British Trust for Ornithology reported a 54% decline between 1995 and 2022, with this decline attributed to declining overwinter survival. Changes in agricultural practice – intensification of livestock rearing and loss of permanent pasture, with associated reductions in soil invertebrates – are thought to be contributory factors to declines in rural populations, but more research is needed to understand declines in urban populations.

Whatever the cause of these population declines, we are fortunate that many of us can still enjoy looking at and listening to an often-overlooked resident of our countryside. Next time you see one, don’t think ‘it’s just a starling’ but take a moment to appreciate its skills of mimicry and the beauty of its plumage.