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| Sturnus vulgaris (How appropriate!) |
"Whatcha lookin' for?" two women walking their yappy Pomeranians query me as I make my way around Conestee Lake Nature Reserve in Greenville, South Carolina. "Oh, them brown birds what set on my lawn in the hundreds 'n eat all ma seed meant for the pretty red birds?!" is their reply when I tell them that I'm looking for Rusty Blackbirds.
I correct them saying that, no, while RUBLs may accompany an enormous flock of Common Grackles on the lawns of poor unfortunate birdists, they actually spend most of their time in wetlands, consuming worms and the like. They enjoy pecans and acorns (and the occasional sunflower seed) to supplement their diet of invertebrates. I neglect to add that the wetlands where North America's fastest declining species spends most of its time have mostly been converted to agricultural fields. (Reduced by 85%, roughly, since we witch-burning, slave-making Europeans landed here so many years ago).
There are a few theories floating around as to why the RUBL is losing it's footing but nothing quite explains the 95% decrease in numbers since the 1960s.
The two ladies lose interest in me immediately and disappear down the path with their fuzzy vermin choking themselves at the ends of their leashes. I continue with my task at hand: hiding three radio-transmitters that we each triangulate to make sure our sense of direction is precise. We want to be on-target when searching for an actual blackbird. I didn't bother mentioning this to the dog-walkers - that our small crew of three are also making the most of these Rusty-free days by testing our field equipment, and practicing our collection of biological data on species that will eat our pecans...
One hundred and twenty years ago the pesky Europeans did more than clog up precious wetlands in order to produce rows upon rows of corn, beans, and cotton. They missed home so much they decided to bring a small part of it to North America - 80 parts of it to be exact. In the spring of 1890 the Acclimatization Society released a swarm of starlings to Central Park in New York City. You know the ones I'm talking about. They whine and sing outside your window in the morning and murmurations, or flocks, of their oily iridescent black-and-speckled bodies can be seen wafting through the city sky around dusk.
Not only are they prolific but they like to nest in cavities, just like a lot of native species like woodpeckers and wrens. There are so many starlings and so few holes. The native species usually lose out in the end. No nest for Mr and Mrs Woodpecker means no babies to perpetuate the family name.
A day later, after learning we need to order new telemetry radios, I can't help but forget about my contempt for this introduced and invasive species as it focuses it's deep brown eyes on my approaching hand. Their hardiness helps explain their impressive ability to colonize the entire continent, and it makes them the perfect model to practice our morphometric data-collection and biological sample extraction.
Poke, bleed, blot, hold, clip, pluck, wing!tail!tarsus!bill-length!-depth!-width!fatscore!
Two and a half hours and twenty starlings later we're done. The starlings were a little sore about the whole episode, but now, we are sharp. And we are more than ready to get our expert hands on some brown birds what set on yer lawn 'n eat all yer 'spensive sunflower seeds, or so they call them.
