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Post by siobhan on Feb 3, 2015 23:29:01 GMT -5
This is a banner day! I got to kiss Ringo, not just once, but several times. I kissed her on the back and ON TOP OF THE HEAD and lived to tell the tale. She just made kissing sounds and didn't squawk or peck.
Here's the thing: Ringo has discovered having special time with her favorite toy. Normally one does not touch a starling. They can touch you, of course, and you are expected to put up with having them poke holes in you and in your clothes, and peer under your sleeves and hems and untie your shoes and pry off anything pry-able, take things away from you if she wants them and so on. One does not kiss a starling. But when one's starling is busy beating the tar out of her favorite toy and flapping her wings and generally making a spectacle of herself (Trixie stares at her while she does this as if she's shocked at her lack of restraint) she is too busy to object to your taking liberties with her person. I haven't been allowed to kiss her since she was a baby so I'm really stoked.
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Post by biteybird on Feb 4, 2015 3:57:19 GMT -5
Hey, Siobhan, well done! She obviously trusts you, with good reason. Congratulations!
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Post by Jan and Shah on Feb 4, 2015 3:59:13 GMT -5
Can we have a photo of Ringo?
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Post by msdani1981 on Feb 4, 2015 4:19:24 GMT -5
Go ahead and send any photos to my email, and I'll post them.  |
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Post by siobhan on Feb 4, 2015 12:32:02 GMT -5
Your email address is at home and not here. Can you send it to me at work? vwells@herald-review.com.
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Post by msdani1981 on Feb 4, 2015 15:31:01 GMT -5
I sent you my email address. |
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Post by siobhan on Feb 4, 2015 16:50:44 GMT -5
I sent you a picture!
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Post by easttex on Feb 4, 2015 17:51:42 GMT -5
Do the beaks of captive starlings change color with the seasons as they do in the wild?
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Post by msdani1981 on Feb 4, 2015 21:11:30 GMT -5
Ringo playing the keyboard:  A close-up pic...she's really pretty!  |
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Post by siobhan on Feb 4, 2015 23:54:14 GMT -5
Thank you, Dani! And yes, most of the time a captive starling's beak will turn yellow when they're in breeding season, but Ringo's 2 and hers never has. They don't always. When they're in season, they get a little nuts, and she's been a little nuts recently but her beak hasn't turned so far. Nuts for a starling isn't like nuts for a parrot who's feeling frisky. It just means she's more ADHD and even less likely to want to sit on my lap and visit. She zooms from one spot to another and talks incessantly and plays with that toy but she doesn't attack me. She let me kiss her tonight again, as much as I wanted. I'm going to enjoy this while it lasts. LOL
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Post by msdani1981 on Feb 5, 2015 1:32:47 GMT -5
You're welcome!
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Post by Jan and Shah on Feb 5, 2015 3:54:42 GMT -5
It is so lovely to see her. She is very pretty.
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Post by siobhan on Feb 5, 2015 13:09:01 GMT -5
Baby starlings are a sort of dull and uninspiring brown until they're about 8 to 10 weeks old, when the stars start coming in. That is a long, long process and it's about two months or longer before they have all their adult coloring. I saved all of Ringo's baby feathers that I could find. She likes playing with shed feathers so I didn't get them all and a couple of times I had to entice her to trade one of hers for one of Maggie's, which she thought were great toys. Maggie had a HUGE molt about the time Ringo started changing so I saved some of hers to bribe Ringo. I've added a few of Trixie's recently molted feathers to the stash because I like to save some from each bird. I have tons of them.
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Post by easttex on Feb 5, 2015 13:45:35 GMT -5
She is pretty. They're such interesting birds. I see them in the nearby town quite a bit, but for some reason they don't come out here to the country as much. Same with the English sparrows. A starling pair did take over one of my purple martin houses one season, but they must not have had much success as that was the only time.
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Post by siobhan on Feb 5, 2015 16:09:39 GMT -5
Generally, they come back to a good nesting spot every year, or perhaps sometimes it's successive generations. We had starlings in our eaves year after year in spite of a singular lack of success, because the opening in the eaves was right above a concrete step and the babies fell out and sometimes fell on the step and died. So when we rebuilt our aging enclosed porch last spring, my husband designed a bird condo as part of the porch, with a little ledge high enough to keep babies from falling out, for that exact spot. I hope they come back this year and use it. It was too late in the season last year for anyone to use it, though some sparrows did use it for a hangout. Nobody nested there.
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