Where have all the starlings gone?

[apricot]

For as many years as I can remember we have had masses of starlings in our garden and they have always nested in the barn. This year I haven't seen even one. The appear to be absent from the park outside my office too. Anyone else noticed or has an explanation?

[sddsddean]

You are quite welcome to some of ours. There are loads of the flaming things. And its worse now that they are feeding their almost full grown chicks in the garden; the racket!!

[Kit]

The rest of them are hanging around in the tree at the end of my garden. Do you want them back?

[apricot]

I didn't say I wanted them back! It is quieter and much cleaner with sparrows nesting in the barn rather than starlings, I just wondered where they had gone and why. Thanks for you replies

[Cetti]

I haven't seen any in our garden for years and from looking at a birdy site the explanation is " that like the House Sparrow the Starling population has declined seriously (by over 70%) in recent times and is on the Red List of birds of high conservation concern.

There are several causes of this decline -changes in farming practices, in grassland management, loss of invertebrate food through the use of pesticides, fewer nesting sites in urban areas owing to household improvements and poorer survival rates among young birds.

Over the years, fewer starlings appear to be visiting the garden regularly during the winter months though the peak number of birds visiting has increased, due to the migrant population (up to 30 million!) from northern Europe".

[rinkytink]

The RSPB have instigated a 'big bug count' in response to what they see as an all round reduction in the amount of birds around and about. They are trying to see if the amount of insects around have ahd an impact

http://www.rspb.org.uk/bugcount/index.asp

[fennster]

Yeah, apparently due to a decrease in suitable habits for insects (through one crop fields, pesticides and deforesting), birds such as the sparrow, the fly-catcher and finches are going hungry and are on the decrease.

[apricot]

Thanks for the responses. I live in rural Cumbria and there are plenty of other birds, t1ts, blackbirds, sparrows, wrens, owls, pheasants, finches, woodpeckers, fieldfares etc. Only the starlings are not around this year. I may not have noticed a decline but there are none at all. Spooky.