European Starling
Sturnus vulgaris
European Starling · Central Park · 26 October 2025
A European Starling in Central Park in October, in winter plumage heavily spangled with white spots that will wear away by spring to leave the glossy, unspotted black breeding coat underneath. Starlings live wherever people do, across Europe, Asia and now every continent but Antarctica.
Every European Starling in North America descends from roughly a hundred birds released in Central Park itself in the early 1890s, in a since-abandoned attempt to introduce every bird mentioned in Shakespeare. There are now about two hundred million of them.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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