white starling

Its 2012, time does fly by.  I saw an amazing thing this week, a white starling.  It flew with a huge flock of regular dark starlings.  I want to catch it, starlings aren’t protected birds, but I doubt that I can.  It was a couple miles down the road and who knows if it even stays in that area.  Actually starlings get a bad rap from people.  They eat a lot of harmful insects.   But they also throw songbirds out of nests and take birdhouses for themselves.  They do eat grain, especially when they hang around barns and in the winter, but bugs would be their first choice.

 They congregate in huge flocks in the winter, which also doesn’t make them popular if you own the area they like to roost in.  They can be quite noisy in these flocks, although a starling’s song isn’t that bad taken alone.  I have heard that they can be taught to talk as well as a parakeet, and I have heard them mimic sounds so I believe it.  

 Their dotted black feathers could be kind of pretty, especially if mutations can be bred.  How about a white starling with dark polka dots?  Wouldn’t that be cool?  I have heard people do breed them.  It’s kind of intriguing.  I want to catch that white one!

Speaking of breeding, my muscovy ducks are laying eggs.  One is under the chicken nests and pulling all the straw out of the nests above her to use for her nest.  That’s the old mama we call Daisy and she nested there last fall.  The other is a young hen who is laying in a chicken nest each day.   I don’t think I will let them brood eggs just yet.  I have two frizzle hens sitting on eggs and I don’t know what will happen if those hatch.  I am going to let them stay with the hens since both are broody and they are the only hens in the pen.  If the cats don’t get them maybe they can raise them.