The starling family, Sturnidae, is an entirely Old World group apart from introductions elsewhere, with the greatest numbers of species in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The International Ornithological Congress's preferred English vernacular name is common starling. The older name is referenced in William Butler Yeats' poem "The Stare's Nest by My Window".
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"Starling" was first recorded in the 11th century, when it referred to the juvenile of the species, but by the 16th century it had already largely supplanted "stare" to refer to birds of all ages.
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The Old English staer, later stare, and the Latin sturnus are both derived from an unknown Indo-European root dating back to the second millennium BC. Sturnus and vulgaris are derived from the Latin for "starling" and "common" respectively. The common starling was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae in 1758 under its current binomial name. Despite this, its huge global population is not thought to be declining significantly, so the common starling is classified as being of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The species has declined in numbers in parts of northern and western Europe since the 1980s due to fewer grassland invertebrates being available as food for growing chicks. Introduced populations in particular have been subjected to a range of controls, including culling, but these have had limited success, except in preventing the colonisation of Western Australia. Common starlings may also be a nuisance through the noise and mess caused by their large urban roosts.
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Large flocks typical of this species can be beneficial to agriculture by controlling invertebrate pests however, starlings can also be pests themselves when they feed on fruit and sprouting crops. It is hunted by various mammals and birds of prey, and is host to a range of external and internal parasites. This species is omnivorous, taking a wide range of invertebrates, as well as seeds and fruit. There are normally one or two breeding attempts each year. These take two weeks to hatch and the young remain in the nest for another three weeks. The common starling builds an untidy nest in a natural or artificial cavity in which four or five glossy, pale blue eggs are laid. This bird is resident in western and southern Europe and southwestern Asia, while northeastern populations migrate south and west in the winter within the breeding range and also further south to Iberia and North Africa. The common starling has about 12 subspecies breeding in open habitats across its native range in temperate Europe and across the Palearctic to western Mongolia, and it has been introduced to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa and Fiji. Its gift for mimicry has been noted in literature including the Mabinogion and the works of Pliny the Elder and William Shakespeare. It is a noisy bird, especially in communal roosts and other gregarious situations, with an unmusical but varied song. The legs are pink and the bill is black in winter and yellow in summer young birds have browner plumage than the adults. It is about 20 cm (8 in) long and has glossy black plumage with a metallic sheen, which is speckled with white at some times of year.
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The common starling or European starling ( Sturnus vulgaris), also known simply as the starling in Great Britain and Ireland, is a medium-sized passerine bird in the starling family, Sturnidae.