Here is a real good news story – At the beginning of December we performed the rescue of this little starling from a chimney in Littlebury. The poor thing had dropped down a factory made chimney with an open cowl and was stuck behind the double baffle system of a Meg 4.5Kw Original Stove. It was a simple matter of dismantling the stove and removing both baffle plates and gently taking hold of the little bird to get it out of the stove. I then released it outside where it flew up into a tree. Where it rested for a moment, had a good look around to see where it was, and then flew off, glad to have been released from the chimney I should imagine. Whilst I was holding it I had a chance to have a good look at it, I had always thought that Starlings were black in colour, but on closer inspection its feathers were somewhat iridescent and were dark green and purple in colour.  Needless to say, the customer, one of our regulars, was very heppy to have saved a little life as well as having the bird removed from the chimney!

Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The Sturnidae are named for the genus Sturnus, which in turn comes from the Latin word for starling, sturnus. The family contains 128 species which are divided into 36 genera. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, are called mynas, and many African species are known as glossy starlings because of their iridescent plumage. Starlings are native to Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as northern Australia and the islands of the tropical Pacific. Several European and Asian species have been introduced to these areas, as well as North America, Hawaii, and New Zealand, where they generally compete for habitats with native birds and are considered to be invasive species. The starling species familiar to most people in Europe and North America is the common starling, and throughout much of Asia and the Pacific, the common myna is indeed common.