Had an interesting encounter with a red-winged starling today. While on the back deck, doing some tai chi, a starling whizzed past my hair, and landed about a metre from me, watching me. I tried to continue but the cat went for it. After tai chi’ing the cat off the deck, the bird was still curiously watching me. I sat with it on the couch for a while, then fed it some tortoise berries from the bush next to the deck, removing the cat two or three more times. It sat on my arm, and ate the berries from a stick. Getting hungry myself, I went to go make some food, and upon returning, the bird became excited by the plate, and helped itself to some feta, gouda and egg (all organic from the Ethical CO-OP, sorry Woolworths 🙂 ), as well as getting a bit close for comfort going for my pants drawstring.
After spending perhaps an hour with the bird, I decided to get the camera but, as I knew, it had gone by the time I returned.
I’ve never seen or heard of a tame starling before, but apparently pet starlings are not uncommon. Mozart had one, and it apparently whistled the theme from his Piano Concerto in G major, K.453. Some say the reverse, that Mozart got his inspiration for this piece from the starling. For now, I’ll make do with 238 words for a blog post.