Aren't I a beautiful boy?

Great photo...

hes lovely

Lovely photo Toto...............

Yes they are beautiful...those colours !

Sweet shot Toto...Welcome to Goy!

Lovely

Gilli..the bird is lovely....it is also outrageous with it's speckles of sunshine amongst it's feathers and look at it..ready to take flight..its beak already knows where it is going...I have to wonder...has it spotted the perfect place in the flight balloon it's place in the dance of Starling wings...or is the crowded grasses that this one has spied a place to scratch and nibble in while gossiping with family...

Toto, very nice photo, did you use a telephoto lens?

Catfinch, what a poet you are!

I found a Youtube site that talked about starlings. The one in the film was talking like a minah would talk. Fun to watch. I have known them to mimick other birds too, saw one sing a robin song. My husband had a Raven when he was a child that someone had apparently tamed and set loose. He was free to come and go; he mimicked family members. (Sometimes said rude things!)

I can't imagine such a thing Weed's, not with your Dear Forest Glen's flower mouth....how could this be?

~yes you are ~very beautiful!

How lovely, lots of colour on the photo plus I love starlings

Hmmm. I bet he's spied a tastey morsel Cj.
For the past two summers there has been a crow around here who was obviously a released pet. He flew all over the neighbourhood saying "Hello", "hello".
The starlings around here are always mimicing the red-winged blackbirds. There are a few out there at the moment that our doing their Bald Eagle impression. Now that sounds odd coming from such small birds.

LOL...our bald eagles roost to hunt in the trees not far from my house and the starlings roost in the trees next to it...hard telling who is saying what..we also have redwing blackbirds but none yet...it is still too early for them to come out of the marshes...or go into them..what ever they do...and not a single starling is speaking like them...

Oh, they've got the redwings down pat around here Cj. I don't know where they go in the winter. There are a few around but they don't sing much at this time of year. Most of them have left for some parts unknown.

Hi Weeds11,
No I don,t posses a telephoto lens, just the zoom on my digital camera.

Toto I have a zoom on my digital too but haven't had great pictures like this one.

Sometimes the redwing blackbirds join in and fly with the starlings.Starlings here perch on the horses backs while they are grazing.

Cat? Flower Mouth? You must have Forest Glen confused with someone else. The redwigs aren't back here yet either but there are lots of starlings.

Really? Weeds...they perch on their backs? I'll be darned..Flash would die...he had that nest of barn swallows in his stall and thought he was going to be killed and eaten by them...LOL

Sounds like Flash is a bit of a wimp but lovely with it.

Yeah, the starlings go for rides all the time on both the horses. Maybe Flash was carried off by swallows in an earlier life. Forest Glen saw a magpie perched on Dan's neck about a week ago, probably warming his feet. :-) I have seen cattle egrets in Hawaii perched on horses backs. I think they are opportunists, waiting for the horses hoofs to scare up insects.

Toto...LOL...Flash is a goofy teenager.....guess having them *splop* droppings on his head was not fun for him...and them swooping into his stall may have been nerve wracking...I put his feed in there on purpose to try to break him of his fear.....not sure it worked...I really have not seen any birds sitting on any of our horses backs...ever...not sure why.

Great word "splop".

"Splop." Is that in the dictionary? You're right Toto it's a very descriptive word. Rock doves do all the "splopping" in our barn. :-)

hmmm...splop" used it a lot when kids splopped their ice cream off their cones when they were young...lol..I think it is the noise it makes...and after that..it is the crying...you hear..."splop" is never really a good sound...my wellies (boots) make that sound in the mud.....see...not a good sound...nice damp dirt...just perfect weather for gardening, does not make that sound...

I'm a little late to the party. Hadn't realized the plumage was so attractive on these birds. Nice photo :)

Thanks Tastey. This is not the best pic I've taken, showing the beautiful plumage. Unfortunately the other pcs are on film and stored away somewhere.

We have a family of these living in the eve (there's a hole and I see them flying in and out of it) of the school I work at. Did you used to develop your own film Toto? Well maybe one day you will come across the ones in storage, then you can scan it (or convert the film to digital) and post it on GoY. The one above is very nice, so we'll all enjoy it until then :)

They love to nest in roof spaces Tastey. I hope that the school doesn't shut off their access. One tip I'd like to give though is to clean the old nesting material away at the end of the nesting season otherwise it can build up over the years and contribute to a fire hazard of someone starts decorating with a blow lamp or hot air gun.

I think that I'm the only who noticed our new residence, so I don't think that the whole will be closed. As for cleaning out the old nesting materials... I doubt that will happen. It's like pulling teeth to get anybody to do stuff like that around there. We do try to keep the decorating w blow lamps and hot air guns to a minimum though... ;~)