Common Starling: Diet

  • Insects and larvae: the primary food during the breeding season — the starling works its way systematically across the lawn and probes with its bill (an "open-bill" behaviour, using the bill as a lever) to find worms and grubs.
  • Berries and fruit: rowan, cherries and grapes make up important autumn food.
  • Grain and spilled feed: in winter it takes spilled grain and scraps in towns and on farms.

The starling thus switches its diet with the seasons and is a pronounced omnivore, which has made it a successful commensal of humans across much of the world.

More about the Common Starling

  • Song & calls
  • Breeding
  • Nest & eggs
  • Nest boxes
  • In winter
  • Male & female
  • Migration
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