Starlings in San Francisco (1 Viewer)

Hi there, I'm a graduate design student and I'm currently doing research project on non-native species.

I'm interested in how starlings colonize habitats and kick out native bird species, and would appreciate any pointers to information on where and how this has happened in the bay area.

I wondered if anyone could tell me where the best place is to find Starlings in the city or nearby - does anyone know of any starling roosting areas in and around the city?

Thanks for any replies!

Stephan

I am not local - in UK infact where there are millions of starlings. I have just come back from San Francisco and certainly saw some in Golden Gate Park, however not in very big numbers.

Regards
Chris

Hi Stephan -
I am not in the Bay Area, but I am in Northern California. I have worked with wood ducks where we check nesting boxes and starlings occasionally drive out the wood ducks. The starlings are smaller than wood ducks, but will drive out a wood duck to build their own nesting coil (literally a coil of dead grass/leaves that they wind up into a bowl). We regularly check the nesting boxes, so when we find a nesting coil we remove the grass and the blue eggs or baby starlings. If the nest was placed over wood duck eggs (the nest is made from dry wood shavings and down feathers) the wood duck will sometimes return and resume nesting in the box.
The story behind starlings is that 'someone' back in 'the day' thought it would be appropriate that all the animals mentioned in Shakespeare were roaming free in Central Park (NY). From there, they spread across the US. I am not sure when or how they got to California, if they colonized across the Great Plains/Rockies/Sierra Nevada or if someone brought them by ship or wagon. There are a few videos on YouTube of Starling flocks in Sacramento. They are pretty amazing to watch in large flocks.
It might be helpful to contact someone in the Health department about starling issues in the city. When I was going to graduate school in KY, the campus would have starling infestations every 18 months or so and use noise machines to clear the campus because of health risks from the droppings. I know they can be vectors for E. coli (but hey, what isn't?).
Otherwise, use your school library resources to search (JStor and Wiley Science are personal favorites, but GoogleScholar is also useful) for "Starling" AND "San Francisco" and see what comes up. In the meantime, here is an article from the journal 'Conservation Biology' about starling competition for nesting boxes with native species from UC Berkeley: http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/wkoenig/K120TA_03.pdf
Best of luck with your research Stephan!
~Laura