Urban Nature Pictures 7/11

[urbpan]

European starlings, a species on the decline in Europe.

Comments

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Aww, poor little starlings. I love them and their cheeky ways. I like the way they go around in little gangs looking like they casually have their "hands in thier pockets".

[buboniclou.livejournal.com]

Can they have ours?

[by-steph.livejournal.com]

Did you have a difficult time not thinking grumpy thoughts about all their native "pests"? I constantly had to catch myself and force appreciation for English ivy, sparrows, starlings, and pigeons. It's startling when it's turned back on me though. My South African friend hates my lovely native lantana flowers. Invasive weeds there.

[deathling.livejournal.com]

That is so weird considering the hordes of them that we have here.

[weofodthignen]

Poor things :-( England must have changed a lot. On the other hand, that's intriguing about their having been rare until the early 19th century, and makes me wonder about the agricultural balance then. I suppose the Industrial Revolution had led to regrowth of woodlands on former pasturage, and that the continuation of coppicing added to this, whereas coppicing almost died out in WW2 ... And I wonder whether the loss of all the "wasteland" I remember from the 1960s, some of which was WW2 bombsites, is a factor. Not quite interested enough to wade through all the footnotes in that link, but sad about the starlings. And the sparrows.

M