Ok, I gotta ask . . . how exactly did you end up with a pet starling?
I'd be happy to tell you! :D So a few months ago, in the Spring, I was helping get my family's alpaca farm ready for our spring Farm Day, where the public can come and see the alpacas and ride hayrides and stuff. I was walking back to this outdoor storage building we have called a Quonset hut, and there in the VERY MIDDLE of the giant open doorway was a baby bird that had clearly fallen from one of the nests high up at the top of the door. It was too young and unfeathered to be out of the nest, and there was absolutely no reasonable way to get it back up there even if I knew which nest it belonged to.
Naturally, my reaction was a resigned sigh. This is not my first summer in recent years helping fallen baby birds and the charm has somewhat worn off. XD; But I can't just leave it there, so I pick it up and make a little replacement nest for it up on a shelf, hoping the mom would come feed it.
But the whole time I'm down there (over an hour), it just cries and cries, clearly hungry and upset about it. Finally, I break down and go looking for worms. Thankfully 1) it had rained recently, and so worms were near the surface under some old cinderblocks, and 2) the baby was old enough to eat whole worms. It horked down like SIX of them, which I honestly still can't believe fit in its little belly. It must have been VERY hungry.
Anyway, I debated leaving it there, but I am weak, and I ended up taking it home. I've raised a baby starling before and the last one was a bit obnoxious, and I think I ended up releasing him too early, so he may not have survived. But I got attached to this one, and I've always liked the idea of having a wild animal pet I raised from a baby, and you can't take starlings to wildlife centers because they're invasive so centers won't take them in, but that ALSO means it is legal to keep them as pets! And I've read starlings can make good pets and mimic sounds and fun stuff.
So yeah, that's how I ended up with a baby starling! :D He's MUCH cuter fuller feathered (and eating by himself, the lad took FOREVER), and he's starting to show his adult plumage and try to sing (altho he is VERT bad at it and hasn't figured out how to mimic anything in particular). He is hysterical as he likes to hop all over the place and stick his beak in holes and open his beak like he's levering something (he does this in my ear sometimes which feels very weird). And I am highly blessed in that he and the doves, while not the best of friends, are managing to coexist in the bathroom, and the cats know not to chase the birds, and the dog DOES like to chase the birds (for fun, not to eat), but Cricket is very fast and sometimes Daisy will lie on the couch with me while Cricket perches on me and it is so sweet. <3
Oh, and his (or her, I won't know until the beak changes color) name is Cricket because of the constant chirruping noise he made as a box-nest baby whenever he wanted food. It was a little obnoxious sometimes, but it was also cute and sounded just like a cricket. Or sometimes a pteradactyl.
Here's some more photos of him from a couple weeks after I found him to now! Enjoy!
