A curious thing regarding a Starling. My attention was directed onto the flooded woods looking for ducks and merganser when I noticed a bird in my peripheral vision fly into a hole on a dead tree trunk standing about two stories out of the water. It was a small bird and a small hole and so I immediately assumed that it was a woodpecker, yet I didn't detect B&W to the extent that my peripheral vision can distinguish the contrast. I tipped my lens toward the hole to see what might emerge. Turns out that it was only a starling. First the head popped out, looked at me, then a wing and finally the whole bird emerged and flew directly toward me and then landed on the rotting log that I was sitting on. It was about 18" away from my hip. I was under a camo cloth. I looked at it through the weave and saw that it was looking at me too. How odd. How cool. I then re-positioned my lens back to the water. Unfortunately my lens was not as close to the water as I would have liked it to be. To accomplish that I would need hip waders. I think I'll look into that. Anyway, after scanning for wood ducks and such I forgot about the starling. A few minutes later I noticed that it was still there, but about 6" farther behind me. It stayed beside me for a good five minutes, as if it didn't have anything better to do. Maybe it was scanning the scene too, looking for holes and simply couldn't locate any worth exploring. I wasn't about to bend over. It was a curious behaviour, or lack of behaviour. First I observe a nuthatch hanging upside down for what seemed like an eternity, without moving, and now I have a starling camping out close enough to exchange the latest skuttlebutt.
