European Starlings don’t "talk" like parrots, but they are amazing mimics. They can sound like alarm clocks or other appliances or other birds, and they can even mimic human speech with incredible ...

Although the Northern Mockingbird seems to have the most recognized reputation as a sound mimic among the songbirds, there are other songbirds (not parrots) with more expansive repertoires and several ...

Most people probably wouldn't think of cats and birds together as a match made in heaven: after all, one is a predator, the other is prey. But there are exceptions to every rule, and the unusually ...

TL;DR: Musician and acoustic scientist Benn Jordan achieved a potential world first by encoding data onto a live European starling. Using a spectral synthesizer, he transformed an image into sound, ...

Noisy. Drab. Pest. These are common reactions when I mention the starling. That is totally understandable. They are indeed loud, nonnative, and commonplace. But they have one amazing super power.

I mostly write about native birds, species that have existed in California since long before European settlement. However, there are also a few species of local birds that are not native to the New ...