Starling drought ?

[airiscool]

Never having hunted then until a few weeks ago, never paid much attention to them either. Now that some of you have me hooked on shooting them ......

With the days getting above freezing I've noticed a big change in the Starlings. They haven't been around much the past week or so. Only the occational one early in the morning and too nervous to stay long enough to get a shot off. Only hit one in the past week and a half. And that one flew off. However I did see my "Clean-up Crow" at the back of the property, eating a Starling about an hour later. Other than that it's as if the starlings could care less about eating.

And, I haven't seen the large flocks hanging out in the tops of trees either - just a few trees with a hand full per tree. I figured most of the flock had  left town.

Today I took a walk around town. I can hear them chattering in the trees in many directions.  As I get closer to the noise, I can see that there are alot of them up in the evergreens, very few the hardwoods. The large flock is still here, but spread out all over town.  It's as if the can't stand each other any more.

And, the few that are in the hardwoods are not clustered together up in the tops where they can fly off easily. They are just sitting, mostly one, sometimes two, down on the larger branches near the trunks of the trees.

No matter what food I throw out, they don't even bother to fly over anymore.

Since it's just about Spring, are they all "Love struck", .. and is this the end of "Starling season" ??

Paul

[Furseeker]

Paul, I've noticed the same thing here in Utah, with the warmer weather and melting snow they don't seem to be very interested in my suet feeders. I think with with the recently cleared ground they have more feeding grounds. But I still get a few everyday, just not the large numbers of a few months ago. Time to go back to the sparrows I guess.

[Mebits]

I had a small flock come in once today, and a couple of singles. I got one and that's it. I suspect that there's a ton of food in the soil that has just thawed and they're eating that.

Even during the summer, we had a flock of them hovering over the neighbor's dog food, so I suspect this is just a seasonal shift combined with a new food source.

I'm still seeing them around town, though.

BTW, there's exactly ONE sparrow who comes into the back yard. We have them all over the neighborhood, but even with corn down there's just one.

[airiscool]

Dave,
These guys are all just sitting there, none of the past behavior of flying around scouting for food...

Spring fever maybe ?  

Paul.

[airiscool]

Mark,

Forgot about them .. now that you mention it .... I haven't seen our many Sparrows around much the past few days either.

Paul

[airiscool]

This reminds me of a line from way back...

Spring is sprung, the grass is rizz, nobody knowns where da birdies is !

Paul.

[longislandhunter]

I haven't seen a starling 2 days now...... guess their patterns are shifting....

Jeff

[only1harry]

That's because they can find lawns or ground that's not snow covered now.  

They change their diet to bugs and worms very fast, but I am also sure they are busy mating.  That's what they do the minute the temps rise and when Spring is near.  I wiped out most of that flock of 30 birds or so that was visiting to dine on the cat food, but there was another one that came a couple of times that was made up of 200-300 birds.  Not sure if it were several flocks together though.  Hopefully I will see them grazing my grass once more and snipe them from 30-40yds away if I can.  

I doubt we will see any significant #'s of Starlings until end of April or May.

[Mebits]

I got two today, but I was watching for them closely. I did everything but offer them an engraved invite. Didn't get more than two flock visits and a couple strays all day.

I did break one in half, however.

[longislandhunter]

I believe Harry is correct.... they are changing their diet over to bugs and such and also starting their mating period.  The other day at the duck farm I saw birds checking out their traditional nesting sites in the trees and buildings on the farm.....  

Jeff

[airiscool]

I can see it down where it warms up sooner, but switching over to worms, bugs up here?  Maybe in a few weeks at the soonest. We're starting to warm up, but it's still Winter weather.

We  have alot of snow cover. It's just barely getting above freezing during the sunny days (yesterday was one) but long, freezing nights. The ground is still rock hard and the frost line is probably close to three feet down this year.

All the Starlings I saw yesterday are just standing around like they're waiting for something. Only a few days ago there was constant activity as birds in each tree would fly over to other branchs to be near other birds, or to groups in other trees. Even then, they rarely stayed in a tree as a group for more than 15-20 minutes before the group would fly off to another tree. Stay there awhile, then back again.

What I observed around town yesterday was that there was alot of "chattering" coming from the evergreens, but not from those in the hardwood trees. And, for those in the hardwoods, it's as if someone spread them out into every tree, down in the trees to just stand on bigger limbs .... and then hit the off switch on any flying.  

Weird !

Alfred Hitchcock would love it !!!!

Paul

[Mebits]

I'm going to bet that this is based on day length and is pre-mating behavior. The bigger flocks are also probably getting ready to break up.

How they break up and why they break up is a mystery to me. There must be some behavioral triggers/markers though.

As much as I want to kill every one of those birds on this continent, I really respect them biologically and behaviorally. They're fascinating prey.