Starling - British Garden Birds

(Common) Starling Both sexes: Black with green and violet iridescence. ×

The Starling has the reputation for being one of the noisiest and most gregarious garden birds.

The Starling's plumage is mainly blackish with buff edged wing feathers and reddish-brown legs.

In the winter it has white speckles above and below. The sexes are alike though the male has fewer speckles on the rump and wings. The bill is dark grey-brown during the winter.

Bill colour in different sexes

The speckles disappear through the course of the winter and by the spring the plumage becomes predominantly iridescent with green and purple. The colour of the base of its quite long yellow beak is different in males and females - it is pink for girls and blue for boys.

Summer Plumage Winter Plumage

Juvenile Starlings have grey-brown plumage with large white speckles on the underparts and light cream coloured throat, but moult completely in the autumn in to the spotty adult plumage. They have a dark greyish bill.

First winter Starlings look most peculiar and give rise to many queries about strange birds in people's gardens - they are typically grey-brown on the head and back but blackish with white spots below.

Fledgling Juvenile First Winter

In flight, Starlings have pointed, triangular wings and fly fast and direct. When they come in to land they look a little like Harrier aircraft with slightly drooped triangular wings.

An increasingly common vagrant from Eastern Europe is the Rose-coloured Starling. In the summer, the adults have distinctive and unmistakable black and pink plumage - the breast, belly and back being pink. Many visitors, however, are juveniles and these can be easily overlooked as they look similar to juvenile Common Starlings, except that the bill is yellowish, legs are pale pink, and the plumage is a drab pale grey-brown with darker wings.