{"id":9481,"date":"2011-06-10T19:59:38","date_gmt":"2011-06-11T02:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/?p=9481"},"modified":"2011-06-10T19:59:38","modified_gmt":"2011-06-11T02:59:38","slug":"starling-cleaning-out-its-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/?p=9481","title":{"rendered":"Cleaning House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Much-maligned but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/2009\/06\/how-starlings-colonized-the-united-states-and-other-stories\/\">still loved by me<\/a>, a European Starling makes the drop: grubs for breakfast, in the door; baby droppings out the door. The parent carries the nestlings&#8217; waste out through the portal, drops it in the shrubs nearby, then forages again in the grass for the babies&#8217; next meal of insects.<\/p>\n<p>Because Starlings, en masse, can clean out crops and cherry trees, people mistakenly think that a flock of Starlings on the lawn necessarily means bad news. Often, though, they&#8217;re foraging for grubs, beetles, cutworms and weevils, actually rendering a service to homeowners and vegetable gardens susceptible to these insects. If you just happen to have a sheep or two, Starlings can help there, too, picking off ticks from the fleece.<\/p>\n<p>Their insect quota is high during the nesting months of spring. And although adult Starlings will eat a variety of foods, their kids get only the most healthful bug proteins.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9483\" style=\"width: 760px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Starling-Nest-Arrival.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9483\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Starling-Nest-Arrival.jpg\" alt=\"Starling Bringing Food to Nest\" title=\"Starling Nest Arrival\" width=\"750\" height=\"560\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9483\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9483\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Food In - \u00a9ingridtaylar<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_9482\" style=\"width: 760px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Starling-Clean.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9482\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Starling-Clean.jpg\" alt=\"Starling Removes Waste Droppings from Nest\" title=\"Starling Clean\" width=\"750\" height=\"560\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9482\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9482\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Garbage Out - \u00a9ingridtaylar<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Much-maligned but still loved by me, a European Starling makes the drop: grubs for breakfast, in the door; baby droppings out the door. The parent carries the nestlings&#8217; waste out through the portal, drops it in the shrubs nearby, then forages again in the grass for the babies&#8217; next meal of insects. Because Starlings, en masse, can clean out crops and cherry trees, people mistakenly think that a flock of Starlings on the lawn necessarily <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/?p=9481\"> [&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}