For those of you who doubt this story, here are the pictures:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/carwash.asp
________________________________
From: Gerry Hawkins <maineusa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Va-bird <va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 1, 2009 7:50:15 PM
Subject: [Va-bird] European Starling
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
