we have adopted a “pet” starling, named Clarice.

she was a nestling, who was rescued from a cat by a colleague of moe’s, a couple of months ago, and, because of the fact that european starlings are an “invasive species”, if we had taken her to wildlife rescue, she would have been euthanised… and, it turns out that she doesn’t fly particularly consistently, which means that if we just released her, she would probably become someone’s lunch, pretty quickly…

so she has been going to work with moe, during the day, and we have a coop for her to sleep in, at night… but she still follows moe around like… well, like a little bird. about half of her “following moe around” is done on the ground, because she doesn’t fly particularly consistently. she flies, but it’s only fairly short distances, and she prefers flying up to things, because flying down is harder…

starlings are very smart, and can be taught human speech, like parrots. we’re teaching her to say “hello, clarice.” 😉 which is even more amusing because of the fact that i have NEVER SEEN the movie “Silence of The Lambs” (i’ve seen clips, but not the entire movie).

mozart had a pet starling.