“Starlings on the Run”
This image, a companion to my previous post of starlings perched pensively in this weeping birch, illustrates a sense of unity, even in their urgent departure pictured here. Seemingly unperturbed at first by my conspicuous approach and maladroit struggle with camera and tripod in freezing snow, they struck me more as amused than frightened. For a brief moment I had deluded myself into believing I might be a “bird whisperer”; otherwise why had they remained affixed so calmly to the branches? Looking at this second image, however, their alacritous exodus disabused me of any such notion.
That day’s brief encounter and these images have occasioned further reflection on these beautiful yet pernicious birds. Their destruction of property is legendary, replete with stories of farmers losing entire crops in an afternoon as starlings descended in locust-like waves. Even our own experience in a small suburban setting underscores those stories as we’ve watched small flocks drop into the yard this week, emptying the feeder in less than an hour. Moreover, we’ve seen them in the spring raiding robin’s nests, devouring newly hatched chicks – a practical though disturbing means of ethnic cleansing and sating hunger.
“Toward Heaven Still”
