Winter starlings are black with white spots, but spring starlings can be brilliantly iridescent. Photo by Jeff Tome You can find birds living just about anywhere if you stop to look around for a bit, ...

Noisy. Drab. Pest. These are common reactions when I mention the starling. That is totally understandable. They are indeed loud, nonnative, and commonplace. But they have one amazing super power.

A disagreeable bird is the starling. Small, dark, impudent and noisy, its only commendable trait is a fondness for potato bugs. Most dismaying is its inexhaustible enthusiasm for reproduction.