Consider the Lowly Starling

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Consider the lowly starling. Much maligned as a pest and cursed by many as an "invasive species," the European Starling has had many fans, too. Eugene Schieffelin was enamored enough with the starling — or really with Shakespeare — to introduce pairs in the United States in the 1890s. Schieffelin attempted to bring the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays (all 64) into this country.

Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, said of the starling: ''In spite of his remarkable success as a pioneer, the starling probably has fewer friends than almost any other creature that wears feathers." But she also noted that he carries "more than 100 loads of destructive insects per day to his screaming offspring." 

No less a figure than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart kept a pet starling. The story goes that while Mozart was rehearsing his Piano Concerto #17 in G, the bird began whistling along. The composer liked the bird's contribution so much that he actually wrote it into the concerto's grace notes. And when Mozart's beloved starling died, he wrote a poem about it.

The bird calls you hear on BirdNote come from the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. To hear this show again, visit our website, BirdNote.org.

Call of the European Starling provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by G.A. Keller.
Musical selection from Piano Concerto #17 in G Major, III Allegretto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, piano and direction by Piotr Anderszewski,. EMI Records Ltd, 2006.

Writer: Ellen Blackstone
Producer: John Kessler

Executive Producer: Chris Peterson

© 2014 Tune In to Nature.org     November 2014     Narrator: Michael Stein