Common Starling Identification Guide

The Common Starling is slightly smaller than the Common Blackbird.

Its beak is yellow, long, and pointed and turns brownish in autumn.

In the autumn, its plumage is dark speckled with light (due to the wear on the tips of the feathers).

Its breeding plumage is dark with metallic green and purple reflections, without white tips.

Its tail is short.

In flight, its wings are noticeably triangular and pointed.

The Common Starling makes various highly varied calls such as shrill and metallic cries.

Its song is complex with metallic, whistled, shrill, fluted sounds and many imitations of other birds or its surroundings.

Here, a song with shrill sounds and crackles... 

Here, another very different song with whistled sounds "stiiiiuuu"...

Sometimes, noisy groups at dusk can be heard when they gather for the night.

The Common Starling is very sociable which helps it find food more easily and be alerted to the presence of predators.

Outside the nesting season, they move in large groups, sometimes forming a murmuration of birds!

In the garden, the Common Starling makes jerky steps while the blackbird hops.

It searches for food by continuously pecking the ground.

It produces 1 to 2 broods per year of 4 to 6 pale blue-green eggs.

It nests in tree holes and nest boxes.

Its nest is a cup made of twigs and stems.

The Common Starling is omnivorous. It eats whatever it finds on the ground: insects, fruits, worms, snails, spiders.

It may come to the feeder, especially in heavy snow.

The Common Starling lives in cultivated wooded regions and in deciduous or mixed woods.

It is sedentary or sometimes a medium-distance migrant.

Some populations from northern and eastern Europe migrate in the autumn to the west and south to North Africa and return at the end of February.