Starling Effort

Day 42 - 07:58am, 11 February 2019

The photos do not do justice to the flow of the water, which - unsurprisingly - is in constant flow. Today, it is competing with the sound of birdsong, which I was struck by from the moment I opened the front door. Spring is approaching. I wish I knew more about identifying bird song, but my knowledge does not extend beyond wood pigeons and owls. However, having listened to a bird song app, I am pretty sure now that there was a starling in the neighbour's hedge this morning, calling across the road. But it was too well-hidden for me to identify it by sight. 

I wonder what he was saying. I write "he" because according to Wikipedia, the males sing constantly as the breeding season approaches in the hope of enticing a female to their nest. Older birds are said to have a greater song repertoire, which helps them to get their gal earlier and then to have greater reproductive success than younger males. Females also appear to rate those with more complex songs more highly. So maybe my little dude was ramping up for Valentine's, vocally strutting its stuff in the hope of finding a mate. 

While Wikipedia also reports that starlings are both monogamous and polygamous, the truth seems to be that only males mate for a second time, despite there being less chance of success on the second occasion. Another snippet is that the male prettifies the nest with greenery and flowers to woo his partner, who then dismantles this when she moves in. I like the idea that the male goes to all that effort, to which the female goes, beautiful hunny, now let's get this nest ready for nesting. 

All of this raises more questions than it answers. Are male starlings either always monogamous or always polygamous? Or, do they flip between the two states depending on whether or not they think they will get away with it? Can a pretty female starling turn heads and do other females actively try to lure males from their first to the second nest? Does female number one know of female number two? Or, does she wake up in the morning and think where's old Jimbo gone? Does female number two know or care that she was second choice? If both females reproduce, does the male split his time between both nests? And how would we ever know? Lots of questions for another day.