Common Starling

The common starling is about 20 cm long with iridescent black plumage glossed purple or green and spangled with white, especially in winter; the legs are pink and the bill black in winter and yellow in summer, and young birds are browner than adults. It has about 12 subspecies breeding in open habitats across temperate Europe and the Palearctic to western Mongolia, and has been introduced as an invasive species to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa and Fiji (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is resident in western and southern Europe and south-western Asia, while north-eastern populations migrate south and west in winter. It builds an untidy nest in a natural or artificial cavity, construction taking four or five days and possibly continuing through incubation, with four or five glossy pale blue eggs that take two weeks to hatch, the young remaining in the nest another three weeks; there are normally one or two breeding attempts a year. Its flocks are commonly called murmurations (Wikipedia, general species account).