European starlings. I did a story on them back in the summer.

(link...)

The photo that accompanies the article is excellent, but it no longer has the credit line, and I don't remember who took it. The article also had a lengthy sidebar of starling facts, such as when they were introduced to the U.S. and what their current population is estimated to be, but that seems to have disappeared too.

I thought grackles and starlings just squawked.

Every time the grackles, cowbirds and red winged blackbirds descend en mass on our feeders, my wife throws a (legal here) firecracker out the window. The only ones that are scared away for more than 1 minute are my dogs.

I once had a friend who said she would just as soon have a cat at her bird feeder as she would the grackles. She was more likely to cuss the grackles than anything else in the world.

Pam Strickland

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut

Starlings are an invasive species. I'm thinking that they were brought here by the Shakespere Society. I'm also thinking they are the blackbirds, of which four and twenty were baked in a pie.

So why don't they just eat them?

Urban hawks or falcons? Maybe introduce some aeries to the downtown high rises? Falcons and Domestic cats are the known predators of starlings. GO FALCONS!!!!!!!!

_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali

Here are some building blocks. I will let you determine whether they are sturdy and should be put together in any combination:

1. Tennessee has a year-round Starling hunting season with no daily bag limit.

2. The Tennessee Attorney General has opined that cities are preempted by state law from regulating hunting. While this opinion is not online, another description of it is in footnote 196 here.

3. The City of Knoxville's Code Section 19-909, which regulates the discharge of firearms, expressly provides that it is not "intended to prohibit the discharge or firing of any firearms by anyone lawfully engaged in hunting upon any property owned by the state and managed by the state wildlife resources agency which may be located within the municipal limits of the city."

My links didn't seem to work. Here are the sites I referenced:

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Sorry to add another note, but I felt obliged to point out that there would be one very easy way to make a dent in Knoxville's starling population that does not involve the cannons or other more creative solutions discussed above.

There is an existing Forks of the River Wildlife Management Area within 3 or 4 miles (as the starling flies) from downtown. It is open for hunting much of the year, and dove is one of the main, if not the main, game which hunters are actually looking for there. At least occasionally, huge flocks of starling pass throug the WMA (and its grain fields planted specifically to attract doves). So we have hunters, shotguns, and a safe location to hunt starlings in close proximity to downtown and UT's problem starlings.

However, although the hunting of starlings is open year round, without limit, on all private lands, it is not allowed on the Forks of the River WMA. The problem is that TWRA outlaws hunting on WMAs except as sepcified in the WMA section of the hunting guide: (link...).

Until this year, many WMAs provided that hunting was the "same as statewide seasons," thus presumably allowing hunting of starling. Now, however, TWRA has changed the format of its hunting guide, using a different icon for each species. The problem is that they don't assign starlings an icon and fail to list them in the "catch-all provision" that provides that

"Fox, groundhog, and striped skunk hunting is permitted on all wildlife management areas during any scheduled small game hunt unless special exception is indicated."

This is probably simply an oversight, but it means that thousands of the most-used hunting areas in the state are closed to starling hunting.

I am with Steve that these birds need to go. I've sent an email to TWRA, and will let everyone know what I hear on this.

I meant to save this one to hurl at our next troll but it fits so well here.

You start out with a little biscuit dough....

Link

If you prefer, here is a slightly older recipe but it does nothing to reduce the starling population:

TO MAKE PIE THAT THE BIRDS MAY BE ALIVE IN THEM, AND FLIE OUT WHEN IT IS CUT UP (from Giovanni de Roselli's Epulario, or, The Italian Banquet, a translation from Italian into English, London 1598)

Make the coffin of a great Pie or pasty. in the bottome whereof make a hole as big as your fist, or bigger if you will. let the sides of the coffin be some what higher then ordinary Pie, which dome. put is full of flower and bake it, and being baked, open the hole in the bottome and take out the flower. then having a Pie of the bignesse of the hole in the bottome of the coffin aforesaid. you shal put it into the coffin, withall put into the said coffin round about the aforesaid pie as many small live birds as the empty coffin will hold besides the pie aforesaid. And this is to be done at such time as you send the Pie to the table, and set before the guests: where uncovering or cutting up the lid of the great Pie, all the Birds will flie out. which is to the delight and pleasure shew to the company and because they shall not bee altogether mocked, you shall cut open the small pie and in this sort tart you may make many others, the like you may do with a Tart.

Bon Appetit!

Wearybottom Associates

I don't know the law very well, but why is it legal to shoot/poison grackles but you can't keep them as pets. I have two that I have raised before they even had feathers. One is blind and the other has a defective leg and can't perch. I live in az and am moving to california. California lists them as not being a migratory bird, yet they are protected under the migratory bird treaty. If I turn these birds over to fish and game they will be euthanized. They are imprinted and have really bonded to me.