10-May-2007: Starlings
I am going to state simply and directly that the most beautiful bird I know of is the starling. Now,
I can easily image the shock that will cause many people. What are you talking about? It's a dull
all-black bird and it's noisy and intrusive. Maybe, but hear me out.
My earliest memory of the starling is when one nested in a tree right outside the bedroom window of
a couple living across the road. I was eight years old. The neighbours complained loudly about "the
goddamn starling" in their tree. As soon as the chicks were hatched, the husband tipped the nest over with
a long pole, then decapitated the peeping little birds with the blade of a hoe.
Okay, so I admit I am a sentimental fool. At about the same age I would bury any dead fish I found on the
lakeshore and put a ruddy cross over them. But, come on: what did those little creatures do
except cry for their mother from their nest outside someone's window? They do not attack people,
nor do they attack our livestock or gardens. They eat bugs. Any creature who contributes to keeping the bug population down
is a friend of mine, I figure.
I never paid much attention to starlings for many years, but then, while reading an article about the electromagnetic
spectrum, I realized that we do not see all that there is to see. Our vision is limited to a narrow range of frequencies—
anything outside of that range (for example, x-rays) is invisible to our eyes. If we could see all frequencies of
the spectrum, we would live in an amazing swirl of shifting colours, unable to distinguish matter from electromagnetism.
In other words, it would be a major pain to have that ability. Our visible surroundings are complex enough for our little
brains to sort out as it is.
While reading another article at one time I was intrigued to discover that birds can see frequencies that we cannot.
They can see colours that are just outside our visible range on the blue side; in other words, ultraviolet. Now what does
ultraviolet look like? Well, we don't really know, but we experience it often enough. That's the part of the
spectrum that "black light," such as those used to identify clients at a night club, emits. It turns white into a ghastly purplish
colour. And what does that have to do with starlings?
Just this: have you ever watched a starling in the sunlight as it cocks and turns its head? You may have seen it: a quick flash
of a colour that looks like a purplish thick oil—just for an instant and then it's gone. That flash of colour is
ultraviolet. A starling's head and neck feathers, if we could see them as a bird does, are a dazzling brilliant purple. Ultraviolet
when mixed with other colours gives them a "day-glow" tint. Our drab all-black friends are actually the most brilliantly
coloured of birds in this part of the world.
I recall a friend once, while watching a starling in her back yard, exclaim: I hate that bird. It looks evil and reminds me
of death. If only she could have seen it as the birds do she would never have made such a statement. I regret not pointing
that out to her at the time. She continued her life missing the secret beauty before her.
Every time I see a starling I am reminded of our limitations and that there is an entire other world of beauty constantly
around us. Just because we can't see it directly with our eyes does not diminish that beauty. At such times I feel honoured to
be alive.
No, I am not suggesting that we should all go about exclaiming over things we cannot see. That would be the depth of
ridiculousness. But I am hoping that anyone reading this will realize that the symbolic meanings we attach to other creatures
—and people—are products of our own narrow point of view. We sometimes take for granted that the world actually is what we think it is.
Just something to keep in mind.