Common Starling - Distribution and Habitat

Distribution and Habitat

Common Starlings prefer urban or suburban areas where artificial structures and trees provide adequate nesting and roosting sites. They also commonly reside in grassy areas where foraging is easy—such as farmland, grazing pastures, playing fields, golf courses, and airfields. They occasionally inhabit open forests and woodlands and more rarely in shrublands such as the Australian heathland. European Starlings rarely inhabit dense, wet forests (i.e. rainforests or wet sclerophyll forests). Common starlings have also adapted to coastal areas, where they nest and roost on cliffs and forage amongst seaweed. Their ability to adapt to a large variety of habitats has allowed for their dispersal and establishment throughout the world—resulting in a habitat range from coastal wetlands to alpine forests, from sea level to 1900 metres above sea level.

Widespread throughout the northern hemisphere, the European Starling is native to Eurasia and is found throughout Europe, northern Africa (from Morocco to Egypt), northern India, Nepal, the Middle East (including Syria, Iran, and Iraq), and north-western China. Furthermore, it has been introduced to and successfully established itself in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, North America, Fiji, and several Caribbean islands. As a result, it has also been able to migrate to Thailand, Southeast Asia, and New Guinea. In Australia, Common Starlings are present throughout the southeast, although some isolated populations have been observed in northern and Western Australia. They are prevalent throughout New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, and scattered sites in the southeastern part of Western Australia.

The bird has been observed nesting in gardens as the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina) from 1987. Since then, the species has expanded its breeding range at an average speed of 7.5 km / year, always following the Atlantic coast, just 30 km away inside. In Argentina, the species nests in a variety of media.

The European Starling was purposefully introduced to North America in 1890-1891 by the American Acclimatization Society, by an organization that decided all birds mentioned by William Shakespeare should be there. The bird had been mentioned in Henry IV, Part 1, and a hundred of them were released from New York's Central Park.