Outfoxed

Few garden birdwatchers view starlings with equanimity. They are either the bird feeder bully boys, throwing their weight about (all 75g of it) and making life difficult for smaller birds, or the gorgeously coloured rainbow-reflecting beauties strutting their stuff on the lawn. In the garden they make up for their lack of manners at the bird table by removing leatherjackets from the lawn; no need to buy plastic grass, or drown it in insecticide in pursuit of a golf-green lawn. The main culprit that causes the dead grass patches is the larva of the cranefly (the daddy long legs – their larvae live in the soil and feed on the grass roots) happens to be the starlings’ favoured food. They make a far more eco-friendly solution than the expensive chemicals from a garden centre.

Few human beings can watch a swirling, contorting starling murmuration without some feeling of awe and wonder either. And justifiably so. It seems the birds achieve this amazing feat by each of them being aware of, and interacting with, just seven other individuals in a murmuration of tens of thousands. This ’rule of seven’ has been used to create computer animations for films and the ‘swarm theory’ based on it could well help improve safety of self-drive cars when they arrive.

But why are our starlings disappearing (as they have done at an alarming rate) and what can we do about it? One thing conservationists need to know is how long adult starlings live. For this reason I, along with another twenty or so bird ringers across the country, attempt to retrap as many adult starlings as we can during the breeding season each year to ascertain this. The starlings’ less than endearing table manners ensure they grab the food used to bait traps set to catch them. They aren’t harmed by this. Indeed, after being ringed, measured and weighed, they often go straight back to their unfinished meal in the trap as soon as I release them.

It sounds easy, but the pursuit of scientific knowledge in my garden this summer has been frustrated by an equally ‘love ‘em or hate ‘em’ garden visitor – a fox. A pair have raised a litter of at least two cubs nearby and make daily visits to check the food left over from the avian smorgasbord usually on offer. But they have also taken to hoovering up the food I put out especially to tempt the starlings within range of a spring-loaded net. Annoying as this is, I can’t help admiring the confidence (and wariness) of the dog fox responsible. While my human intelligence lends itself to trapping starlings it is insufficient to outwit our daily vulpine visitor. Having risen at the crack of dawn to catch these birds for my scientific endeavours, I am forced to confess over breakfast that my data gathering has been minimal. Outfoxed again!