Nature notes: Starlings

Starlings are singing on chimney pots and television aerials near the place where they will nest next month. The males choose a hole under eaves or in a tree-trunk before they have acquired a mate, and build the rudiments of a nest in it with straw and dry grass to try to attract a female. When a female comes and pairs up with one of them, she improves the nest with a lining of feathers and soft moss. The male’s song is similar to the one he was singing in the winter flocks — a rambling miscellany of warbles, whirrings and wheezings — but now it is often punctuated by sharp, clear whistles which ring out from a rooftop. Starlings have also improved their appearance slightly with the spring. The male especially loses some of the pale spots that starlings have in winter, and becomes more of a glossy black, with purple and green iridescent lights, while both members of the pair now have yellow beaks.