You’re probably seeing many young European Starlings in your yard this time of year.  Very young starlings have mostly grayish tan feathers, unlike the glossy black feathers of the adults.  Whole families of starlings often descend on bird feeders during late summer, as the juveniles follow their parents and learn how to find food for themselves.

Starlings may be frustrating this time of year, but they’ll be less of a nuisance as the weather cools off this fall.  Most starlings spend the fall and winter in farm fields with mixed flocks of blackbirds, including Red-winged Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds, and Common Grackles.  In the meantime, you can limit their access to food using cages over your feeders or resetting the tension on your Eliminator Squirrel-proof Bird Feeder.  There are a few food options that starlings don’t like, such as Safflower and Simply Suet.

European Starlings are native in Europe, northern Africa, and the western half of Asia.  All of North America’s 200 million starlings are descendants of fewer than 100 starlings that were intentionally introduced in New York City in the early 1890s.  Starlings are intelligent, adaptable birds, and they’ll eat almost anything, allowing them to thrive where people live.  It took only a few decades for them to spread across North America in the early 20th century.  In addition to North America, there are introduced populations of European Starlings in New Zealand, southeastern Australia, South Africa, and in parts of Argentina and Uruguay.