Squawking starlings

Lots of activity in the garden at the moment with a very noisy family of starlings. I counted 10 of them around the bird feeders with the young birds waiting to be fed and then starting to get the hang of things themselves.

The noise is pretty loud but it’s worth it to help them raise their family. I was surprised by how many young birds there are. I am not sure if there are 2 different families but there seem to be at least 6 or 8 young birds. The parents are kept very busy.

Food for starlings

They like the bird fat in squares and in balls. They don’t last very long!

Water

It’s not uncommon to see 4 or 5 of them sitting on the edge of the birdbath at the same time or several in the water together. The bird baths are emptied regularly or the water is full of their mess and needs changing. They are very messy birds!

Baby starling on the ground

There was one of the youngsters hopping around on the ground for a few days but I haven’t seen it since just after I rescued it from a cat. It went into the drainpipe and then found shelter behind a pot. Not sure if it survived but there are at least 6 young birds flying between the trees, bird feeders and birdbaths.

Starlings in decline

Apparently starlings are in danger as the population has declined to only 804,000 breeding pairs in the UK. Well they are doing very well here and my parents also have a family of them that sit on the chimney pot and wake them around 4am.

The RSPB has a good article about them here and The BBC has several videos here.

Have you any starlings in your garden? Have they bred this year?