Has there ever been a more hated bird than the European starling? Let loose in New York City’s Central Park by a misguided aristocrat, the starlings were supposed to help curb insect outbreaks and add to the tuneful choir of other songbirds. Rather than staying put, the dark and speckled starlings marched across the continent like a conquering army. In less than sixty years, they were in every state in the contiguous United States and their numbers topped two hundred million. Cities came under siege; crops buckled beneath their weight. Public sentiment quickly soured.
A bitter, baffling, and sometimes comical war on starlings ensued. Weapons included dynamite, guns, bounties, fake owls, real owls, rubber snakes, balloons, itching powder, and greased building ledges. Still, artists and scientists marveled at their undulating aerial formations, which seemed equal parts poetry and mathematics. Keen listeners recognized the starling as one of the world’s great vocal mimics, imitating everything from fellow birds and cell phones to barking dogs, car alarms, and TV commercials. And then there were their undeniable skills of adaptation and survival. What if there was more to these stubborn villains than once thought?
Mike Stark’s Starlings is a first-of-its-kind history of starlings in America, an oddball, love-hate story at the intersection of human folly, ornithology, and one bird’s tenacious will to endure.
Mike Stark is a longtime journalist and author. His previous nonfiction books include the award-winning Chasing the Ghost Bear: On the Trail of Americas Lost Super Beast (Bison Books, 2022) and Wrecked in Yellowstone: Greed, Obsession, and the Untold Story of Yellowstones Most Infamous Shipwreck. His first novel, The Derelict Light (Bison Books), was published in 2023. He is the creative director for the Center for Biological Diversity and lives in Tucson, Arizona.
List of Illustrations 1. The Bird Man Cometh 2. Mr. Schieffelins Birds 3. A Frenzy of Introductions 4. The Sparrows 5. Across the Sea in Cages 6. Lessons from Down Under 7. Occupation 8. European Origins 9. The Skies Transformed 10. Appetites 11. Sing a Song of Starlings 12. Under Siege 13. In Defense of Starlings 14. How to Kill a Starling 15. Blast Em with Starling Calls 16. Darkness in the Golden State 17. Rise of the Bird Men 18. Death from Above 19. Cant Beat Em? Eat Em 20. Mapping the Travelers 21. Poison Years 22. A Forever War 23. Spellbound 24. Built for Survival Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes
“A meticulously researched account of the collision of starlings and humans, starting with the species’ deliberate 1877 introduction to New York City by a wealthy “man of leisure” named Eugene Schieffelin. . . . [Mike Stark] writes in lavish detail of the ecological train wreck that swiftly followed as Schieffelin kept importing crates of starlings, as well as house sparrows, skylarks, nightingales and bullfinches.”—Julie Zickefoose, Wall Street Journal
“A lively revelation of starling behavior, evolution, history, and relentless persecution for the crime of being prolific and adaptable. . . . Passages on the diverse, often pecuniary, and sometimes absurd motivations of movement adherents are among the book’s most amusing and provocative. . . . The perils starlings face and the wonders they inspire earn them their role as epic heroes in Stark’s thought-provoking tale. Balanced and reflective, Starlings calls on readers to challenge their prejudices and misconceptions of one noisy three-ounce blackbird, a vital step in our own journey to recast the meaning of belonging on a chaotic and increasingly violent Earth.”—Julie Dunlap, Washington Independent Review of Books
"Stark recounts tales of ingenious (noisemakers, fireworks) and not so ingenious (tying teddy bears to roost trees) ways that people tried to stop the inexorable march of the starlings from their eastern origin, but he also cites those who enjoyed and respected the birds abilities at mimicry as well as their murmurations of hundreds of birds. This combination of human and natural history is a captivating read."—Nancy Bent, Booklist
"Starlings is both highly readable and deeply entertaining, tracing how starlings went from a solution to a problem. Starks book dips and weaves like a starling murmuration from theme to theme, following how Americans have thought about and dealt with their feathered immigrant neighbors."—Catherine McNeur, H-Environment
"Starlings is at once one of the most entertaining, readable, and profound bird books I have ever read. It is clearly from a writer of many gifts."—Rachel Carson Council
"Starlings is a book that pushes back against that sleepwalking approach to life and which shows us ways in which we can increase our understanding and wonder with the plants and animals we already have around us."—Elizabeth Stice, orangeblossomordinary.com
“Starlings is a smart, entertaining parable about human foolishness, avian ingenuity, and the unintended consequences of ecological meddling. With wit and verve, Mike Stark tells the epic story of the plucky starling—a bird that enchanted Mozart, exasperated farmers, and ultimately conquered America.”—Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings and Eager
“Americans have been bewitched, befuddled, and enraged by European starlings for more than a century, and the country’s least-loved nonnative bird couldn’t ask for a better chronicler than Mike Stark. Balanced, whimsical, and deeply researched, Starlings tells the story of how they became the bird we love to hate, and in doing so illuminates our own contradictory human nature.”—Melissa L. Sevigny, author of Brave the Wild River
“In Starlings Mike Stark peels back 150 years of myth and misunderstanding to reveal a fascinating story about human folly, animal smarts, and the value of life on Earth. You’ll never look at a starling the same way again.”—Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction
