Starlings, a sad tale
As the title suggests, this is another bird-related post (I'm not obsessed with birds. Really, I'm not).It's also a little bit sad.
We have an abundance of starlings (more specifically, European Starlings, Sturnus vulgaris) here in Ireland. Everywhere you look, they're there. Well, we have a nesting pair living in the wall cavity in our kitchen. We didn't really notice them until we started to hear the commotion inside the wall during the day. For such small creatures, they sure do create an awful racket!
Anyway, a few weeks ago, when we getting ready to leave my other half called up to me that there was a bird in the kitchen. At first I thought he was joking, until I joined him in the kitchen and lo and behold, behind the bin there a nearly-fledged starling. It was pretty obvious what had happened - it had gone wandering and ended up falling through the cavity and saw the light of the kitchen and exited through the hole in the wall (the houses in most of the estates here are very badly constructed. They were literally thrown up using the cheapest material and in the shortest time. We have the wonkiest kitchen - not only is there a gap in the wall where the extractor fan exhaust is, but the floor isn't level and the walls are crooked). The poor little thing was terrified - it was screaming for its parents and they were screaming back. I picked it up and put it outside. I figured I'd let Mother Nature sort it out.
So off we go for the weekend and had a lovely time. When we got home, we went to the kitchen to make some dinner, but we noticed something weird. Well, not so much weird as gross. The place was covered in bird crap. It was all over the place - on the window sill, on the radio, on the bureau, on the floor, on the couch - the place was a mess. However, there was no sign of the party responsible, so I looked a little harder and found a very deceased starling behind the door. I disposed of the corpse and got stuck into the task of cleaning up the kitchen. I was trying to clean bird poop off the window (birds are SO messy) I was wondering how 1 little bird could make such a mess. It turns out that it didn't; it had help from 2 of it's siblings. They were discovered behind the couch, also deceased, unfortunately. I felt really bad for Mr. and Mrs. Starling who had spent weeks raising a brood, only for them to die before they were fully fledged.
But it wasn't all doom and gloom. Judging by the noise in the wall, there were one or two chicks left in the nest. The nest is quiet now, so I'm guessing (hoping) that at least one of the chicks made it to adulthood. I actually think that Mr. and Mrs. Starling might be in the process of making more babies. They were very frisky this evening and it looks like they were transporting nest building material into the cavity. Oh well,let's hope that this new bunch is smarter than the last!
We have an abundance of starlings (more specifically, European Starlings, Sturnus vulgaris) here in Ireland. Everywhere you look, they're there. Well, we have a nesting pair living in the wall cavity in our kitchen. We didn't really notice them until we started to hear the commotion inside the wall during the day. For such small creatures, they sure do create an awful racket!
Anyway, a few weeks ago, when we getting ready to leave my other half called up to me that there was a bird in the kitchen. At first I thought he was joking, until I joined him in the kitchen and lo and behold, behind the bin there a nearly-fledged starling. It was pretty obvious what had happened - it had gone wandering and ended up falling through the cavity and saw the light of the kitchen and exited through the hole in the wall (the houses in most of the estates here are very badly constructed. They were literally thrown up using the cheapest material and in the shortest time. We have the wonkiest kitchen - not only is there a gap in the wall where the extractor fan exhaust is, but the floor isn't level and the walls are crooked). The poor little thing was terrified - it was screaming for its parents and they were screaming back. I picked it up and put it outside. I figured I'd let Mother Nature sort it out.
So off we go for the weekend and had a lovely time. When we got home, we went to the kitchen to make some dinner, but we noticed something weird. Well, not so much weird as gross. The place was covered in bird crap. It was all over the place - on the window sill, on the radio, on the bureau, on the floor, on the couch - the place was a mess. However, there was no sign of the party responsible, so I looked a little harder and found a very deceased starling behind the door. I disposed of the corpse and got stuck into the task of cleaning up the kitchen. I was trying to clean bird poop off the window (birds are SO messy) I was wondering how 1 little bird could make such a mess. It turns out that it didn't; it had help from 2 of it's siblings. They were discovered behind the couch, also deceased, unfortunately. I felt really bad for Mr. and Mrs. Starling who had spent weeks raising a brood, only for them to die before they were fully fledged.
But it wasn't all doom and gloom. Judging by the noise in the wall, there were one or two chicks left in the nest. The nest is quiet now, so I'm guessing (hoping) that at least one of the chicks made it to adulthood. I actually think that Mr. and Mrs. Starling might be in the process of making more babies. They were very frisky this evening and it looks like they were transporting nest building material into the cavity. Oh well,let's hope that this new bunch is smarter than the last!
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