Fellow birders,
As many of you know, the European Starling is often attracted to
bright, shiny objects and will collect them for nesting or mate-attraction
purposes whenever the opportunity presents itself. In 2004, pictures taken
by a surveillance camera set up by the owner of a car wash in Frederick,
Maryland showed European Starlings stealing quarters from vending machines.
The owner had set up the camera because he suspected looting by his
employees, but the only "thieves" who were stealing quarters were of the
avian variety. Moreover, they were working in tandem to do so: one bird
would go up inside the machine to jimmy coins loose, and the other birds
would grab them and fly off with them. Most likely one or more starlings
was attracted by the glint of overlooked quarters in the change cup and made
off with them; other starlings saw where the quarters were coming from and
imitated the behavior, learning in the process how to work as teams to
retrieve coins from inside the machine itself.
This completely true story of the behavior of European
Starlings was exhibited by S. v. vulgaris, the subspecies which was
introduced to North America. I believe that studies have found this
subspecies to be substantially more ingenious than the subspecies found in
the Old World, but I defer to Messrs. Day and Topolsky in this regard.
Gerry Hawkins
Arlington, VA
