Common Starling
(Sturnus vulgaris)
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From afar, it can be confused with the blackbird, but the starling has a noticeably smaller tail. The coloration of its plumage is magnificent light specks on black background, shimmering with violet and green. But young birds are uniformly black-brown.
Starlings nest in hollows or birdhouses — in villages, city parks, plantings of trees on the edges of fields.
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The starling sings loudly, excitedly, giving itself wholly to the song, shuddering with the entire body in time with the voice during the culmination moments, gesticulating by wings. A remarkable feature of its songs is imitative nature. Some males, almost not repeating, very precisely mimic tens of sounds. Among them are songs of other birds, in particular, redwing, rosefinch, golden oriole, and so on. They imitate also very well even the calls of woodpeckers’ nestlings, melodious trill of curlew, cries of cranes, frogs’ croaking, quacking of ducks, etc. Quite often, the starling can include in its song sounds of an anthropogenic origin: scratches of wickets, strokes of a hammer upon roof tin, and so on. The starling is one of the most remarkable so-called "mockers"! To observe it in the wild nature is true pleasure!
The eggs are incubated by both parents, replacing each other every half an hour in the daytime, but at night only the female incubates the eggs.
From the middle of summer, young birds leave their nests. From that time on, noisy flocks of starlings wander over meadows, filling air with cheerful chirping. During all this time, every evening they gather on their habitual places for spending nights.