A well-researched and thorough accounting of one of North America’s most common pains in the neck. Starlings may seem like a regular bird call in the background of our normal soundtrack, but as you’ll learn in Mike Stark’s Starlings - that wasn’t the case for our great-grandparents. Stark walks you through the history of their introductions, control methods, and public opinion. These pages have more about this species than you thought possible!

It’s a fascinating read that I encourage birders, non-birders, and wildlife enthusiasts to check out. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC I’m exchange for an unbiased review.

I really enjoyed reading this about a starling bird, it had that researched element that I was looking for and enjoyed the way this was going on. The historical element worked well and enjoyed the overall package. I learned a lot and really enjoyed getting to go through this and was invested in the historical element.

This was a fascinating read about a species of birds that are typically hated on. As a birder myself, I found it very interesting to learn about the Starlings history. Would recommend to birders or anyone who enjoys reading or being in nature.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bison Books for a copy of the ARC.

This was such a delightful book! The writing was clear and easy to read, and I feel like I learned a lot! The wrath that people feel towards these little birds is completely comical and Stark did a great job of selecting quotes that showed the seriousness of the problem as well as the righteous anger that people were feeling. My personal favorite was "Francis of Assisi, if he ever tangled with [starlings], might have been tempted to whittle himself a slingshot. I wish the humor was as strong throughout the book, many of the later chapters lack that tone, but they still felt very informative and I wasn't bored. The organization of the book was interesting, with each chapter discussing a different approach to the starling problem. This did mean, however, that some chapters felt much more engaging than others, with some of them making me feel so sad I didn't want to read about it. I'm glad I pushed through those, the information and the discussion of invasive species was worth it and those topics that did upset me were also very important. As someone who is pretty new to reading non fiction for pleasure, I highly recommend this book!

Starlings: The Curious Odyssey of a Most Hated Bird, by Mike Stark, is a thoroughly researched deep dive into the second-most populous bird in the world. While I admit I might not have needed all the examples given, I can’t fault Stark for his dedication to his topic.

The book moves in non-linear fashion, which can at times be a bit disorienting at first when one shifts time backwards or forwards, but then one settles in and is able to place things in their proper context. We begin in 1959 with the arrival of “the Bird Man”, hired by Mt. Vernon to deal with the massive starling problem and then jump back to 1889 to introduce Eugene Schieffelin, the man best known for introducing starlings into the US. The commonly told story (and the one I thought I knew as well) is that he did so as part of a plan to bring all of the birds in Shakespeare to the States, though Stark shows how that story has been debunked.

The rest of the book moves back and forth between the 1800s and now, showing how the birds came into the country and then expanded at an incredible pace, thanks to various reasons— as the book details in various sections — the starlings’ ability to adapt to an unfamiliar land. On the one hand, they ate harmful insects and added the beauty of their sky-swirling murmurations to their new country. On the other hand, they also ate crops and worsened urban life with their noise and feces. Early on, the negatives were seen to greatly outweigh the positives, and so the birds were targeted for eradication, though such attempts didn’t make more than a dent.

And so we get a number of segments detailing the various ways people and the government tried to solve the starling problem, from the professional “bird men” coming into towns with the promises of “guaranteed techniques” to groups banding together to shoot thousands to government run poison gases, aerial spraying of sticky substances, noise repellents, and more. The scale of death is truly stunning, with starlings being killed by the thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions depending on the method. What was equally surprising to me was that this spate of killing continues into contemporary times. While this has had some effect, Stark shows how habitat destruction, modern agricultural and husbandry methods, and climate change have all contributed to an even greater drop in starling population, as well as other birds, with starling numbers dropping 50 to 90 percent depending on the country.

Stark recognizes the complexity of our relationship with these birds, the billions of dollars of lost crops and other damage, their invasive nature, the way in which they may have a detrimental impact on native birds. But he also is entranced (as who wouldn’t be) by the spectacle of their wheeling flights (nicely explained toward the end thanks to years of research) and also feels sympathy for how they were basically kidnapped and brought here, asking if our complicity in their presence means perhaps we should have a kinder eye toward them.

Starlings is full of detail and well supported with data, interviews, research and the like. The writing is crisp and clear and at times poetic and vivid. For anyone with an interest in this creature particularly, it’s a wealth of information. It’s also a good read for anyone curious about our often-tormented relationship with the creatures we share this world with.

As a birder, I found Mike Stark’s book on starlings both fascinating and thought-provoking. It dives into the history of how starlings were introduced to the U.S. and how they’ve adapted. Stark’s exploration of these resilient yet often misunderstood birds made me reflect on the broader consequences of human intervention in nature. The starling’s story serves as a reminder of how we sometimes fail to consider the full impact of introducing non-native species. A great read for bird enthusiasts and anyone interested in the complexities of nature.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review—interesting information about a much-hated bird, though not the bird's fault.