Modern society always seems to be in pursuit of some bird or animal whose habits are inimical to its peace of mind. Leave out the charade of fox hunting, but then there's the largely urban campaign against the magpie. Cats just move in more quietly and take the bird from under your eyes, and almost certainly kill more than do magpies. Anyway, another bird, the starling, is under investigation, according to the Figaro newspaper, by the Institute of Rural Economy at Rennes in Brittany.
A heading suggests that it's better to move them on to a more suitable habitat in the country than destroy them in the city, for example. They make great noise and splash their excrement over buildings and pavements. Just as this was being written for the Figaro, it was reported that they were causing a lot of damage to the cherry harvest. They are very partial to the same fruit.
They are adaptable birds, notes the researcher Philip Clergeau. And they are colonising cities as far away from Rennes as Perpignan on the Mediterranean. In the countryside they eat grubs and seeds; in the city, they enjoy dropped chips, pizza crusts, etc. The idea would be to direct them to open spaces where they don't bother people and yet can settle down. So, apparently, one plan is to frighten them out of the city or town by reproducing the distress cry of the jay and by letting off guns. In advance you have to cut down Jungles of weeds in suitable open spaces, cut the hedges tightly and keep on doing so. They won't return to the city, it is thought.
And France, after all, is a big country with much open space and a declining rural population. Starlings have been eaten, but no one would seriously propose upgrading them to regular table use. Close up, they are rather. dashing birds and their flight control is fantastic. David Cabot tells we have about 360,000 breeding pairs here, with a large influx of outsiders in autumn.