As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Thursday, 13 February 2014

The Starling That Dared To Be Different

NPR | Jan. 30, 2014 2:17 p.m.

CONTRIBUTED BY:


Robert Krulwich

You’ve seen them. We’ve all seen them.

Hundreds of starlings are sitting side by side by side — up on a power line yakking, preening — when all of a sudden, boom! Up they go, all of them. What happened? A sudden noise? A falcon in the neighborhood? Whatever it was, all the birds know. All the birds go. Starlings find safety in numbers. They like sameness. Exceptional starlings, I imagine, get eaten.

Well, that’s what I used to think. Then, today, I saw my first unlike-all-the others-starling. At least I think I did.

Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)