A starling is a small to medium-sized bird with dark, glossy feathers that shimmer with green and purple when the light hits them just right. Up close, their feathers are speckled with tiny white or buff-colored spots, especially in winter. Starlings have short tails, pointed wings, and yellow beaks that turn dark in colder months.

European starlings are incredibly common in North America today, though they weren't always here. In 1890, a group of about 60 starlings was released in New York's Central Park by people who wanted to introduce all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays to America. Those 60 birds multiplied into hundreds of millions living across the continent.

Starlings are famous for two things: their talent as mimics and their spectacular flying formations. A starling can imitate car alarms, other birds, and even human speech. When thousands of starlings fly together at dusk, they create swirling, shape-shifting clouds called murmurations that look like living smoke dancing across the sky.

While starlings are clever and adaptable, they often compete aggressively with native birds for nesting holes in trees, sometimes pushing out species like bluebirds and woodpeckers. They thrive in cities, farms, and suburbs, eating insects, seeds, and scraps.