You can tell it’s election day because the media are grasping for non-political stories today.
These two stories are widely covered in the print and broadcast media:
Parakeets – not Jimi Hendrix’s fault – Guardian, Telegraph, Times, Mail
Dead Starling mystery on Anglesey – BBC, Guardian, Times, Metro and NorthWalesLive.
I had a chat with Mike Graham on talkRADIO just before 11:00 this morning about both stories. At least this got Wild Justice a mention and allowed me to say that Starlings had declined a lot and it wasn’t down to Magpies.
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Seeing the pictures, I assume it was a flock that had dived into the road – maybe due to water reflecting + a bird of prey pass – it is known to happen, isn’t it, Mark ?
On the subject of poor Starlings I was worried to find the wings of a dismembered Starling on the screen leading to the Tor View hide at Ham Wall – but a notice inside said a BOP -probably Sparrowhawk – had taken up residence and was the cause of the gory bits !
The starling incident sounds like another case of their normal predator evasion tactic going wrong. A case of, if one ‘hits the deck’, they all do! There have been eye-witness accounts of this happening but, nevertheless, it’s not fully understood.
Starling story sounds like a case of roosting birds or ground low feeding birds struck by a fast moving vehicle, why else would they only be on the road and verges/hedge right nexr to the road.