Why do starlings only come to my garden in the spring, this is the third year they have come to feed, last year i remember watching 2 starlings feeding their young, 9 of them but this included one strange looking chic, bigger than the young starling and looked nothing like a starling but one of the parents was franticly feeding this chic who seemed to be a little more demanding than the starling chics, i watched this for about 2 weeks the whole gang of them came everyday but it is the only time i see starlings once a year, why? is it because ilive in a fairly rural area
It most likely is - outside of the breeding season starlings gather in large flocks and congregate around feeding areas, roosting at night in large numbers which give us the amazing '"murmuration" displays. Once winter is over we come into the breeding season - visiting starlings from Scandinavia, Siberia, Russia etc all make their way home and our resident starlings pair up disperse to breeding territories - these are usually completely different areas to the winter feeding grounds and your garden is used for them to raise their young
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