Wonderful description, Liz.
--Dave Nutter
On Dec 16, 2013, at 03:45 PM, Liz Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
I still can’t quite believe what I heard this morning, and I have to share it with someone:
This morning I opened the door to my chicken coop and found the girls inside riveted to an astonishing show. One of the coop windows broke recently; I stapled plastic sheeting on the inside of the frame, and stuck an old campaign yard sign on the outside, for security and added insulation. The sign isn’t quite as wide as the frame, though – there’s a gap about 3” wide. Two starlings had come in through the gap, and were having a ferocious battle in the space between the sign and the plastic sheeting. And here’s what had the girls and me spellbound: the battle appeared to be as much about skill in mimicry as it did about physical strength.
When I hear starlings riffing in the treetops or rooftops, it’s usually a mixture of mimicry and weird alien-radio-transmission whirrs, clicks, and whistles, and the mimicry is often clearly in the practice stage – the birds will repeat and modify phrases. These two fighting birds were vocalizing constantly, and it was almost pure mimicry. Moreover, there was very little repetition, or variations on phrases – they were throwing down one new sound after another. I’m not great at bird songs, but I do know the yard birds, and I heard chickadee, cardinal, blue jay, titmouse, catbird, Carolina wren, red-tailed hawk, crow, raven, herring gull, toad, many different chicken calls, our farm geese, the horses across the street, several different dogs, the tractor, and our neighbor’s chainsaw. I’ve never heard such a virtuosic display from starlings before, ever. And this was all as they thrashed and kicked and pecked at each other. The performance went on for several minutes before one of the birds scrambled out through the gap and fled, pursued by the other.
-Liz Brown
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