European Starling

The European Starling is a stocky, short-tailed songbird with glossy black plumage that shimmers with purple and green iridescence in breeding season, transitioning to a heavily white-speckled appearance after the autumn molt. The bill changes color seasonally too, turning bright yellow for breeding and duller gray-brown in winter.

Native to Europe, western Asia, and North Africa, the species was deliberately introduced to New York's Central Park in 1890-1891 and has since spread across virtually all of North America, becoming one of the continent's most abundant and widespread birds.

Key field marks

• Stocky body with a short, squared-off tail and long, pointed bill
• Breeding adults: glossy black with purple-green iridescence and a yellow bill
• Non-breeding/winter adults: densely speckled with white spots, dark bill
• Fast, direct flight on triangular, pointed wings

Similar species

• Breeding-plumage starlings can suggest a small grackle but are much shorter-tailed, stockier, and lack the grackle's long keeled tail.
• Blackbirds (e.g., Brewer's Blackbird) lack the starling's speckling and have longer tails and a more upright posture.

Now found across nearly all of North America, from southern Canada to northern Mexico, European Starlings thrive in an enormous range of human-altered habitats, including cities, farms, feedlots, parks, and suburban yards, as well as more open natural habitats. They nest in cavities, readily using building crevices, streetlights, and nest boxes in addition to natural tree holes.

Populations in the northern part of the range move south in winter, while many starlings, especially in milder regions, are resident year-round; enormous non-breeding flocks gather to roost communally, sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands.

Starlings are highly social and often forage on lawns and open ground in large flocks, walking with a rapid, purposeful stride while probing the soil with their bills for insect larvae and other invertebrates. They are also excellent mimics, incorporating the calls of hawks, other songbirds, and even mechanical sounds into their own varied, chattering, and whistling song.

Outside the breeding season, starlings form massive, swirling flocks known as murmurations that wheel and pulse in the sky in tightly coordinated aerial displays before settling to roost. As secondary cavity nesters, they aggressively compete with native species such as bluebirds and woodpeckers for nest holes, which has been a significant conservation concern in parts of their introduced range. Clutches typically contain four to six pale blue eggs, and pairs may raise two broods per season.