Starling

Gallery: AvianPosted July 14, 2017833 views4 comments

Starling-juvenile. Made some interesting discoveries about Starlings which explains the colour of my previous pics. They go through a quite complicated moult- in several stages. Even the adults go through a Summer moult then another in the Autumn for winter. The birds in the group pics are in all different moult stages- including the adults
This is a young bird well through its first change. Hard to get one bird in the shot in the chaos that goes with a starling flock bathing session.
D7100
Nickor 70-300mm
1000 ISO
900th second @ f9
Late afternoon sun from low left Crop from landscape
Bit of another bird removed from left..
Cheers
JohnR

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 14, 2017 at 8:53 AM

Excellent detail and a nice pose, John. Thanks for posting the information on the moults. There are plenty of them around here, but rarely on our place except in the February gatherings.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on July 14, 2017 at 11:20 AM

Interesting info on the moult. Nice frame. I'm guessing there is a typo on the shutter speed at 9000th of a second indecision

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by John Robinson on July 14, 2017 at 11:34 AM

Thanks both
Right Kieth
Cheers
John

Registered on March 2, 2008, 535 Posts, 2453 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on July 14, 2017 at 3:46 PM

Yes these look like our first level juveniles. Nice color and detail in this image. But despite the nice photograph, it is still a nasty bully bird here in the US.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments