Starlings

Habitat

This is the same video that I posted in our teachers' video message to you all. I decided to include it here also so that we could keep all our starling videos in the one place.

As you now know, they like to nest in walls. Starlings actually like to nest in a wide range of areas: hollow trees, farm buildings, holes on roofs - generally in places that offer good protection to the eggs and young chicks. They can also be found both in towns or cities and in the countryside.

In this clip, you'll hear the chicks chirping. Sometimes they are so loud, I can even hear them when I'm inside in my kitchen!

Feeding Time

Now girls, it took forever but at long last I managed to get a video of the adult starlings flying in and out of the hole in the wall to feed their chicks. I tried sitting outside and hiding myself but they were too clever and wouldn't come near the nest. Bird watchers really must have some patience!

This video is taken inside from my kitchen window. The other voice you'll hear is my son Darragh, who didn't realise at first that I was trying to take a video. I decided to use this clip anyway as it had taken so long to get it in the first place!

Appearance

This clip is almost 4 minutes long. Although it starts with the adult birds flying in and out of the wall, the main focus of this video is the the starling as it sits up on the top of the roof.

As you can see, the starling is a small bird with a short tail and pointed wings. In the summer, adult starlings are a dark colour, with a green and purple shine to their feathers. Their beak is yellow and their legs are pink. (In the winter their colour changes - their beaks are darker and they have lots of yellowish white spots on their feathers.) I couldn't zoom in as close as I would have liked, but hopefully you'll be able to get some idea of how beautiful the colours are on his feathers. You'll also see clearly how pointed his wings are when he flaps them around.

Slow Motion

Well girls, it's proving very difficult to get any further videos of the starlings that are nesting in the wall of the old farm building. I think the chicks are hiding on me and Mammy and Daddy are too wary to fly to the nest while I am lurking around. I did manage to get this very short video clip of one of the adults flying to the wall and then flying off again. There is no sound with this clip so why not play it in slow motion? Just click on the settings icon (the little wheel shape in the bottom right hand corner of the video clip), click on Playback speed, and then click on 0.25. Now play the video and it will run at a quarter of its normal speed.

There's some decimals and fractions for you girls 0.25 = 1/4!