“Some blame Shakespeare for their [starlings’] presence on the American continent. In the 1800s, “acclimatization societies” began to form in the US. It was a vulnerable time for immigrants, who were homesick and hungry for the arts, literature, flowers and birds of their homelands. One aim of the societies was to introduce European species that would be “interesting and useful” and offer aesthetic and sentimental inspiration.
Eugene Schieffelin was a pharmacist who lived in the Bronx. He was an eccentric Anglophile and a Shakespeare aficionado. As deputy of the American Acclimatization Society of New York, Schieffelin, it is believed, latched onto the goal of bringing every bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare to Central Park, and he zeroed in on the Bard’s single reference to a starling in Henry IV. In 1890, he purchased 80 of the birds, had them shipped to the US, and released them on a snowy March day in Central Park. Genetic research in sample populations across the continent leads ornithologists to believe that all of the hundreds of millions of starlings in North America are descendants of Schieffelin’s birds.
It took them just 80 years to populate the continent, and they’ve behaved atrociously in their New World. They feast on crops and lurk around farms and lots where they binge on feed in the troughs of cattle and swine. According to an estimate by Cornell University researchers, in the US starlings cause $800 million in agricultural damage every year.”
~Lyanda Lynn Haupt~
I think you do tend to get bad behaviour whenever an animal or bird or insect is moved from its usual habitat to somewhere new. I have a vendetta against the grey squirrels here. Nice to watch but they bully and drive out our own native red squirrels, which are rare to see and only exist in a few places on the British Isles now.
I like starlings but haven't seen one in a long time here.
Oh, so it's happened to your country too! Starlings and sparrows were brought out here (Australia) and now dominate our backyards at the detriment of our native birds - so I'm not a fan of them at all. However you have captured them very well in the tree Jane :)
@pej@ranger1@casablanca@gilbertwood@bigdad@harbie
Thank you so much for your comments about my photo of the starlings in the tree. I like starlings, especially when I am lucky enough to see a murmuration--it's like a ballet.
November 18th, 2018
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I like starlings but haven't seen one in a long time here.
Thank you so much for your comments about my photo of the starlings in the tree. I like starlings, especially when I am lucky enough to see a murmuration--it's like a ballet.