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The starlings are generally a highly social family. Most species associate in flocks of varying sizes throughout the year. Murmuration is the flocking of starlings, including the swarm behaviour of their large flight formations. [8] These flocks may include other species of starlings and sometimes species from other families.
Common starlings take advantage of agricultural fields, livestock facilities, and other human related sources of food and nest sites. Starlings often assault crops such as grapes, olives, and cherries by consuming excessive amounts of crops in large flock sizes and in new grain fields, starlings pull up young plants and eat the seeds. [122]
The Sturnus starlings are terrestrial species; they walk rather than hop, and have modifications to the skull and its muscles for open-bill probing. The latter adaptation has facilitated the spread of this genus from humid tropical southern Asia to cooler regions of Europe and Asia. Starlings nest in holes in trees or buildings.
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Although starlings are a tropical family by origin, Tristram's starling is well adapted to living in a desert environment: it loses relatively little water to evaporation and produces less heat than expected for its base metabolic rate. Its dark plumage may help it survive in the desert winter, when temperatures are low but the Sun's radiation ...
Seeds from fruit have also been found in the stomachs of some birds, including those from Carissa edulis, Euclea, Rhus and Apodytes dimidiata. It usually feeds on the ground, in pairs and small flocks, and will readily follow large mammals and catch prey flushed by their movement. It also joins mixed flocks of other starlings. [2]
A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2008 found the genus was polyphyletic. [6] In the reoganization to create monotypic genera, the white-shouldered starling was one of five starlings moved to the resurrected genus Sturnia that had been introduced in 1837 by René Lesson. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. [7]
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