Steppe zone, that part of it, where hordes settle downlocust, populated by beautiful pink starling birds. The closest relative of the pink starling is an ordinary putty. Outwardly, this bird resembles a crow rather than an ordinary starling. In saber and pink starling size, flight and some habits are similar. And in color these relatives have nothing in common.
Description of the pink starling
The plumage covering the head and neck is coloredblack color scheme with a dark purple metallic sheen. Black feathers in the wings and tail gleam greenish-purple hues. The remaining feathers are painted in delicate pale pink tones. Young pink starlings are covered with brown plumage. The color of the legs is reddish brown. The coloring of males is brighter than that of females.
The pink beak of these birds is much thicker thancommon starlings. The head of the original feathers is decorated with a cute black crest, formed by long feathers. Males flaunt a more pronounced tuft than females.
The pink starling behavioral features
It just so happened that the pink starling -public bird, dropping into giant strong flocks. To see a highly social creation alone is almost impossible. Unique birds are kept by huge communities. Birds gather in flocks in dozens, and often hundreds. Packs unite in gigantic colonies, including tens of thousands of pairs, excluding the younger generation.
Birds fly pretty fast.They often flap their wings, rapidly sweeping over the ground. In flight, individuals stick to each other. A flock rising into the sky looks like a solid dark ball. After landing, the birds scatter instantly, continuing to run and making flights in one direction. The result is that the whole pack moves in one direction.
Distribution area
During the winter, the birds fly, looking forfood in the desert regions spread over Iraq, Iran, India and Afghanistan. In the spring, they migrate to southeastern Europe and to the lands of Central Asia. Populate the Caucasus and southern Siberia.
Nesting features
For nesting bird pink starling picksunoccupied space near water. She is seduced by steppes, desert and semi-desert plains, rich in fodder, teeming with cliffs and rocks with crevasses, steep coasts with little shelters, cracks, buildings with niches. In these secluded, remote places for predators, birds arrange nests.
Shpak - a relative of the pink starling, it nestscompletely different. It is important for him to find a pair in early spring, build a nest, lay eggs and raise offspring. Relatives with a pink color are in no hurry to nest. Their colonies settle when abundance of feed accumulates in the nesting site. Locust larvae and grasshoppers grow to the middle of summer.
Starling Nests
Pink starlings nest in the crevices of rocks and fragments of cliffs, between stones, in burrows, built in swallows, in cracks on cliffs. In the steppes of the nest settling in the grooves of the earth.
Nest birds form from a thin layer of dryplant stalks. The negligent layer of stalks is covered with leaves of wormwood, feathers, dropped by steppe birds. In finished form, the nests look like massive small bowls. On top of the nest barely covered with rare grass or pebbles.
On the territory of 25 m2 pink starlings manage to accommodate up to 20 nests.Nests are crowded one next to another, sometimes touching the walls. From the side, at first glance, it seems that this is just a chaotic pile of garbage. With such careless construction, the clutch becomes prey to a voracious locust.
Pale gray eggs in nests appear in May.In total, there are 4-7 eggs. Chicks that appeared after 5 weeks in an atmosphere of crowding and total confusion become the common property of all adult individuals. Couples who have lost their offspring through the fault of the locust, are painlessly experiencing a loss, feeding up other nestlings.
Подросшие птенчики не чураются взрослых собратьев.They willingly take possession of the food of any nearby bird. Adult birds in the kingdom of incessant crowding and confusion distribute forage indiscriminately, appeasing the hunger of their neighbor and their young.
Hunting features
Охотятся пернатые оригинальным способом.A huge bird cloud, landing in hunting grounds, orderly lined up in dense ranks. Birds move in one direction, maintaining a distance of 10 centimeters. They are on the run snatching grasshoppers and locusts from the grass stand.
Each bird is absorbed in its occupation so thatnot able to prevent neighbors from hunting. In the period of harmonious hunting, no starling remains at a loss. Everyone not only eats their fill, but also feeds their offspring to the dump.
Потомство в колонии вырастает дружно.After a month and a half the youngsters take off from their nests. As soon as the chicks become stronger and leave the nests, the colony will be removed from their homes, disintegrate into separate flocks and begin to lead a nomadic lifestyle.
Pink Starlings Food Chain
The pink starling may well be called greata traveler, an experienced nomad and just a pack tramp. All of these terms get to the point when it comes to starling birds. Birds are forced to roam, because the pink starling feed chain is based on a key insect, the locust.
Starlings, chasing the locust unwittinglywander. Eating locusts is beneficial. The harmful insect is not adapted to life alone. Locusts moving in huge arrays. Therefore, the starlings - not just gregarious creatures, like other birds. They are collective creatures who live year-round in strong flocks.
Adult per day requires 200 gfull feed. The colony, numbering ten thousand couples burdened with offspring, for a month destroys about 108 tons of locust. To feed themselves, huge colonies settle for nesting in those places that are filled with locusts and other orthopteran insects.
Having caught the locust, the bird cuts off her legs andwings, hitting an insect on the ground and deftly wielding its beak. Smashing the victim into pieces, she begins to swallow them. With an abundance of locusts, feathery birds do not so much eat insects as they simply maim and kill.
Pink Starlings Limited Power Chainmakes them chase insects, depriving them of the opportunity to own familiar places to which they would return from their winter hut. The biology of birds is tied to the food by locusts and other orthopterans. Birds appear only where there is a locust. If it is not enough in any place, the pink starling is capable of making great flights in search of food.
However, locusts and orthopterans are not the onlyfood of pink starlings. They are happy to feast on berries, weed seeds and rice. Birds can cause considerable damage in cherry and cherry orchards, vineyards and rice paddies. In addition, starlings feed on beetles, lepidoptera, spiders and ants.
Harmful or helpful
In the period of ripening berries, stray starlingsturn into a real disaster for gardeners. Therefore, a natural question arises as to whether it is necessary to reduce the number of the pink starling, which is distinguished by excessive gluttony. Does the benefits of extermination of pests during their mass development compensate for damage to crops in gardens?
To answer this question, one should producesimple calculations. In captivity, the bird is able to eat up to 300 harmful insects. A colony of one and a half thousand pairs during the day will destroy about a million malicious creatures.
К тому же розовые скворцы оседают огромными colonies only where pests multiply en masse. At the same time, birds know in advance about the danger that people are able to notice only when it becomes obvious. If we consider that the locust destroys everything without regret, the starlings become a real salvation for the harvest. The damage to birds in the background of the distress delivered by the locust just fades away.
