Some birds adapt to our human presence. Most starlings, I feel, are so used to humans that they would struggle without us. It is a sad fact of wildlife; some species just gravitate toward us feeding them. I am sure they will be fine without us, but it is funny how used to us they have gotten. I am staying in or close to a nature reserve and these birds are as tame as domesticated animals. This gives me the opportunity to get really close and take some extreme close-ups. With the Cape Starling (Lamprotornis nitens), the results are these yellow eyes staring into your soul. They almost look comical.
For example, in the image above you can see how it stares into your soul. It feels like that judgemental stare. It does not seem to be a friendly bird. It looks like a school headmaster.
But the image below almost looks like a Midjourney created image, but it is really a photograph I took with my camera. But again, that judgemental stare is present.
This photograph's background is overexposed and the bird underexposed, but I liked the result with the yellow eys still staring at us. They are really beautiful.
They are really loud birds when you stay around them for a while. At first, they are beautiful and mesmerising with their shiny feathers, but after a while they become too much.
As soon as they spot and smell food, they arrive in numbers. Here is a candid image of one picking some food from the ground.
But here you can see just how many of them can arrive as soon as they smell food. But even with all of this, they are still beautiful birds and their judgemental stares become comical.
In any case, I hope you enjoyed these photographs of this stunning bird. Even though it is a common starling, one many people are familiar with, they remain beautiful. What starlings do you find in your area?
All of the photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and Tamron 300mm zoom lens. The musings and writings are also my own.