


What's going on with bluebirds, Henry IV, and their possible population demise?

When I heard the original comment on the radio, I was able to track it down by finding the program web site (in this case, "To the Best of Our Knowledge" at TTBook.org) and find the program (search for [ Shakespeare starling ] and you find it in one click), and then listen to the program again.



That's such an astonishing claim that I had to see if it was true.



[ bluebirds extinction ]

Which leads to a number of articles (including the Wikipedia article on bluebirds, noting that there are 3 different kinds of bluebirds in the U.S.) that all mention competition between starlings and bluebirds, and all point to Eugene Schieffelin as the perpetrator. (My favorite article in the Bluebird genre is: "A history of Bluebirds" by the Sialis organization, so named for the Latin name for the Eastern Bluebird. It's marvelous what fans will do.)


A little background research on Eugene Schieffelin reveals a real character. He was a member of the American Acclimatization Society as the group that released starlings into Central Park as a kind of art project in 1890 to make Central Park a little more cultured, and that meant Shakespearean.



As it turned out, most of the birds they introduced from Shakespeare's mentions turned out to be harmless or low reproducers. The exceptions-starlings and English sparrows-continue to plague North America to this day.

Short answers to questions:

1. WHAT connection does Henry IV have with the collapse of bluebird populations?


2. WHO was such a fan of Henry IV that he caused the demise of bluebirds in North America?

Finally, WHAT is the name of the organization that sponsored his (now notorious) act that led to the problems with bluebirds?
Schieffelin belonged to the American Acclimatization Society


Wait... there's more!

Several people pointed out that in a Scientific American article from May 2008, Steve Mirsky writes that starlings actually appear to be innocent in the case of the missing bluebirds. The feather friends at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology contend on their Web site that


"…a study in 2003 found few actual effects on populations of 27 native species. Only sapsuckers showed declines because of starlings, and other species appeared to be holding their own against the invaders." So when it comes to songbird decline, as Shakespeare almost said, maybe the fault is not in our starlings but in ourselves."

That's a clever closing line. I saw this SciAm article as well, so I did a bit more looking. First, I found the original paper: Koenig, W. D. 2003. European starlings and their effect on native cavity-nesting birds. Conservation Biology 17: 1134-1140. pdf

This is where the quote comes from…


Then I did a search like this:

[ site:cornell.edu starlings bluebirds ]




In another web article, Cornell's Ornithologists write: "They [starlings] nest in cavities (holes in trees, buildings, and nest boxes) and will aggressively destroy eggs and kill nestlings of native birds (like bluebirds and woodpeckers) to use their cavities."



[ bluebirds starlings ] — on Google Scholar, which I then sorted by date to see the latest hits

This leads to a paper: "The relationship between introduced European Starlings and the reproductive activities of Mountain Bluebirds andTree Swallows in British Columbia" Canada (Koch, et al.; International Journal of Avian Science, v 154, n 3, p 590-600, July 2012)


The gist of which is:





And for all the hassle that starlings cause, you still have to appreciate the writing style of this article about starlings vs. bluebirds from Sports Illustrated (Robert Cantwell, 1974):



That's great, muscular writing. While it would be rejected by any decent scientific journal, you can't help but feel an appreciation for the starlings, bullies though they may be.



Keep searching!

Wednesday search challenge (8/15/12): Who caused the demise of the bluebirds in North America? | SearchReSearch




Image via Ralph and Jenny.