Hanno Müller Photography

European starlingStar Sturnus vulgaris

Family: Starlings

Upright and short-tailed, a little smaller than a blackbird, glossed green and purple in spring with a yellow bill, heavily spotted white in winter. Starlings walk rather than hop while probing lawns for leatherjackets, mimic other birds from a rooftop perch, and gather at dusk in roosts that wheel as one. In Germany it breeds almost everywhere, with many birds moving south in autumn and others staying.

All birds

Hanno Müller Photography