{"id":62875,"date":"2020-01-18T06:02:44","date_gmt":"2020-01-18T13:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=62875"},"modified":"2024-12-13T04:51:11","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T10:51:11","slug":"winter-european-starling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/01\/18\/winter-european-starling\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter European Starling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EuropeanEuropean Starling in winter next to a pond \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/500, ISO 320, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Three days ago when there was a break in the clouds so I went out in search of birds in the afternoon. Most of the ducks, coots, grebes and gulls were too far away to take high quality images of. I thought I was going to go home without any frame filling bird photos until this European Starling flew in and landed next to the water.<\/p>\n

\"PondPond side European Starling in the snow \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/640, ISO 320, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

The behavior of the starling puzzled me a bit because it ate some snow even though it was just steps away from the pond where it could have had a drink of fresh water. This photo shows some of the snow on the starling’s bill.<\/p>\n

I know that it costs birds that eat snow energy to warm the snow up to body temperature so I thought watching and photographing this European Starling and a Ring-billed Gull eating snow<\/span><\/a> this week was interesting.<\/p>\n

\"WetWet and bedraggled European Starling in snow \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/320, ISO 320, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

The starling disappeared for a few moments when it walked down to the edge of the pond and when it came back into view I could tell that it had taken a bath in the water because it was all wet, looked bedraggled and there were still water droplets clinging to its feathers.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t resist laughing when I saw this image on my monitor at home. It looked as if there should be a speech bubble in the frame with a caption that says “Do you mind? A little privacy please?” or something along those lines.<\/p>\n

\"EuropeanEuropean Starling after taking a bath in winter \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/320, ISO 320, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

The wet European Starling quickly shook the water off of its feathers after this photo was taken and flew towards some trees across the water.<\/p>\n

I didn’t come home with the gull, duck, geese or grebe photos I thought that I might take but I am happy with these starling images.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my European Starling photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n

I am aware there are a lot of people who don’t like starlings and consider them to be horrible pests that cause problems for our native birds but I can’t blame the starlings for being in this country because it was misguided humans who took them from their homeland and released them here about 130 years ago.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I am photographing European Starlings I don’t think about them being invasive pests, I think of them as wild, feathered, living subjects.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought I was going to go home without any frame filling bird photos until this European Starling flew in and landed next to the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,249,709,26],"tags":[4004,5109,5578,251,4064,1984,4891,4050,4815,4739,4262,8018,3996,1824,373],"class_list":["post-62875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-european-starlings","category-salt-lake-county-utah","category-utah","tag-adult","tag-bath","tag-bedraggled","tag-european-starling","tag-ice","tag-pond","tag-shore","tag-snow","tag-starling","tag-starlings","tag-sturnus-vulgaris","tag-urban","tag-water","tag-wet","tag-winter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t