Starling, I love you

Do you ever watch ‘Countdown’?  Tempting though it might seem for someone who works from home to watch a lot of daytime TV, I rarely even turn the box on before 7.30pm.  However, last week I heard that Chris Packham was on the popular words and numbers game show so, as a long-term fan of his, I thought I’d catch a couple of episodes.

I’m also a fan of Susie Dent.  I decided a while ago that, contrary to her rather demure and bookish exterior, she is a filthy-minded and possibly quite kinky little minx.  (I could be wrong of course, but she does have a penchant for talking about the more scandalous origins of words and with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. )   For this (speculative!!) reason alone I like her enormously. Add to that her obvious thirst for knowledge and enthusiasm for language, along with her gentle modesty, and it makes for a pretty appealing combination as far as I’m concerned.   I am straight, by the way...  but, still.

I digress…. What was really lovely about Chris Packham’s guest spot was that Dictionary Corner focused on words with wildlife connections, in particular birds. Chris Packham, Susie Dent, words AND birds?  What a wonderfully heady mix!  And in the middle of the afternoon too!  The only thing missing was some rock’n’roll… but in a way that was there also, what with Chris’ well-known music credentials and punk past. 

Anyway, I watched a little of Wednesday’s edition and learned something which will stick in my mind, and that was about starlings. 

I know a lot of people aren’t keen on starlings (they always get labelled as ‘greedy’ – which seems a very anthropomorphic judgement of a wild creature’s natural survival instincts) but I have a real fondness for this characterful species.  They’re intelligent and resourceful birds, with perky and feisty personalities (or whatever the equivalent is for birds, I realise that sounds anthropomorphic too), but - and this is something I've known about for a while - their population in the UK has been in shocking decline for the last few decades.  In fact, it's down by 80% since 1979 and they are currently considered to be at serious risk.   Our garden is full of many different breeds of birds at most times of the year but I’ve seen significantly fewer starlings in the last six months than ever before.  Now when I see just two or three come in to feed I really welcome their noisy, skittish presence.

At this time of year, the starling’s plumage is quite different to its sleek, black-with-rainbow-tint feathers of Spring and Summer.  In Winter there is little iridescence: instead the plumage is dark with numerous white speckles.  Hundreds and hundreds of speckles… like millions of stars in a night sky, perhaps…? 

And so, as the lovely Susie Dent explained, one possibility for the origin of the name starling is that it was inspired by this appearance, derived from the Anglo-Saxon word for ‘star’ (‘stœr’ ? – not sure about the spelling!)    I thought this was such a picturesque and rather romantic way to name a bird (and so much more imaginative than ‘blackbird’…), I'll always remember it now. 

I've just looked out of the window to watch a pair of sturnus vulgaris and all I can see is the pure beauty of a starlit sky in their wings.