Purple Martins vs. European Starlings

Wild Bird Rescue has a Purple Martin house that has been very popular in years past. The trick is to allow the purple martins in while keeping house sparrows and starlings out.

Lila Arnold, one of the other rehabbers at Wild Bird Rescue, said she had been seeing house sparrows taking over some of the units, and asked if I would clean the nests out while I was here Saturday.

Sure enough, when I got here I could see three pair of martins checking out the apartments and I could also see a pair of house sparrows going in and out. I had my husband drop the house (my hands aren't strong enough to wrestle the pins--darned arthritis!) and pulled out a large house sparrow nest. I checked the other units and could see a few had the beginnings of purple martin nests.

Today I drove up to Wild Bird Rescue and there are at least 6 pairs of martins busily going in and out with nesting materials. I could also see a pair of house sparrows busily working away. At this point with the martins looking well established, I probably won't drop the house again. However, I thought about it when I saw a starling sitting on top of the house, as they can be very aggressive and have been reported to oust martins.

I think this group will be OK though. As I watched the starling, trying to decide what I should do, I noticed a couple of martins diving at him. One grabbed him and they fell to the ground, where they wrestled for a few seconds before the starling flew away, pursued by several of the martins. It appears they can take care of the starling interloper fine on their own. Bob Lindsay observed a similar mobbing on a starling last year.

I've been out since and it appears there are about 6 pair of martins and 2 pair of house sparrows in the unit. We'll see how it goes. If the house sparrows look like they are getting obnoxious, they'll have to go.

Good birding!

Blackbirds

Few birds are more dispised than the blackbird family, probably because of the huge swarms they tend to form. Even if you like them, they can get to be too much of a good thing if they are your neighbors.

I personally don't care for starlings--mostly because they are not native and aggressively take over nesting places other native cavity nesters could be using. Although I have to admire their adaptability, I still don't care to see them in my neighborhood. However, I am fairly complaisant about the other blackbirds--mostly because they are not roosting in large groups in my trees and pooping all over my driveway and cars. This is the most common question I get from people--what do I do about grackles in my yard? No one has ever liked my answer--change your habitat.

I have found that people who have grackle problems have nice manicured lawns with a few large trees. This is ideal grackle habitat. Having a thick understory of shrubs and tall grasses tends to discourage large flocks of blackbirds, especially the great-tailed grackles. I do occasionally have one or two of the common grackles come into the yeard, but not many and not for long. However, my neighbors around me (who have much prettier lawns,) have LOTS of grackles. Sometimes it pays to be a slob.

Good birding!

Getting Out the Winter Duds

(Note: photo courtesy of Lila Arnold)

The European Starlings are molting into their winter attire. In the summer, they appear predominantly brown--I think because so many are young birds (they have a very high survival rate). Right now they are an odd combination of winter and summer with speckled breasts and brown backs and wings. Soon they will be a glossy black with spots all over them.

The starling is a very successful introduced species. Today some 200 million starlings make their home in the United States from an original release of about 100 individuals in New York's Central Park in 1890 and 1891. This is not a good thing for our native cavity-nesters as starlings are intensely competitive for these nesting sites.

Although I think of starlings as year-around residents, many starlings do migrate. They tend to be associated with urban areas and agricultural crop land--areas with short vegetation. They avoid large areas of woodland or desert. They will eat almost anything. Although invertebrates (especially those which live in the soil) are their favorite food, they eat fruits and berries, seeds, garbage, and livestock and pet food. Their diet is almost exclusively invertebrates in the summer and more plant foods in the winter.

I was reading the account on starlings in Cornell University's Birds of North America (http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna) and found it interesting that the digestive system of the starling changes with the change in diet:"The digestive system of starlings can respond to changes in diet to make more efficient use of a seasonally variable food supply. After switching to plant food, the gut lengthens, the gizzard becomes larger, and the intestinal villi lengthen (in Feare 1984). The rate of food passage through the gut also increases (Levey and Karasov 1989)."

I am always amazed what information you can find on Birds of North America--I didn't know that starlings cannot digest sucrose or that they prefer green nesting materials.

I don't care much for starlings, mostly because they are very aggressive in seeking cavities to nest and will evict many of our natve birds. Among them: wood ducks, buffleheads, woodpeckers, bluebirds, great crested flycatchers, purple martins, and tree swallows. Since there are many other small burds that use bluebird boxes to nest, I assume they would also interfere with them: wrens and chickadees for example. However, you have to admire their ability to be so successful in the scheme of things.

Unfortunately, there is not a good deterrent for starlings--they adapt fairly quickly. I don't often have any starlings in my yard, but I don't maintain a beautiful yard either. My neighbors have them; I see them as I drive by. But I rarely have any. Sometimes in the winter I will have one or two show at the feeder. But my yard has a lot of bushes, tall grass and trees and very little grass. There are good things about being the neighborhood yard pariah.