Starlings an eternal mess for Rome

Richard Collins reports on the third Sack of Rome by noble winged knights.

IN the year 410, Alaric the Visigoth and his barbarian hordes vandalised Rome. In 1527, there being no money to pay the victorious army of Emperor Charles V, the troops looted the Eternal City.

Now, the third Sack of Rome is under way; hordes of unruly starlings have arrived from northern Europe. There are said to be five million of them. The birds spend the day feeding in the countryside, then head for town. There, the flocks join together, forming huge saturation bombing formations, which circle over buildings and parks. This is biological warfare; the waste products of the day’s feeding are dropped everywhere. Motorists are especially angry; cars parked in vulnerable areas are deluged with corrosive bird droppings. The bombing raids continue until darkness falls. Then the birds settle onto trees in the city’s parks and sleep through the night.

Great starling flocks, darkening the sky at dusk, are among Europe’s great wildlife spectacles. Although the invaders are a tourist attraction in Rome, the citizens are angry and media coverage has been hostile to the birds.

But have the newspapers got it wrong? As the saying goes; ‘the first casualty of war is truth’. The most destructive invader of cities is not the starling, but the private car. Vehicles choke streets and belch forth noxious fumes, corroding buildings and promoting global warming. Worldwide, over a million people are killed on the roads each year. Exhaust fumes probably dispatch as many more.

Surely birds which discourage people from bringing cars into cities deserve support? Starlings, members of the paramilitary wing of the Green movement, are noble knights whose cause is just.

As in all wars, there are civilian casualties and ‘collateral damage’. Not all bombs reach their intended targets and buildings can become victims of ‘friendly fire’. Bird droppings dissolve stonework and one fears for the fabric of the Pantheon and Castel Sant’ Angelo. Fortunately, the starlings prefer to roost in trees rather than on buildings.

Most of their guano is discharged into the city’s parks.

On a serious note, however, mention must be made of a recent accident. On October 10, a Ryanair plane approaching Ciampino Airport, encountered a flock of starlings. Unable to take evasive action, the pilots flew the plane through the cloud of birds. Starlings were sucked into both engines, which began trailing smoke. The plane’s wings and undercarriage were damaged. The crew managed to land the plane safely but, as Wellington said after Waterloo, ‘it was a damn close-run thing’.

Aircraft-bird collisions are a modern problem, but flocks of birds and insects have been a nuisance for millennia.

According to the Book of Exodus, God sent 10 plagues to punish Pharaoh. In the 8th of them, locusts ‘... covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land and all the fruit of the trees ...’

These huge grasshoppers can destroy an African farmer’s crop in a few hours. South of the Sahara, quelea finches form gigantic concentrations, wiping out seed crops everywhere.

A century ago, the passenger pigeon, one of the world’s most numerous birds, devastated crops in north America. The problem became so serious that the Bishop of Quebec formally excommunicated the pigeons. Persecution was so thorough that the passenger pigeon was rendered extinct. Martha, the last member of her species, died in Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914.

But why do birds gather into flocks and why do starlings choose cities as roosts? At one level, flocking is a heat conservation measure.

Birds huddle together to keep each other warm and raise the temperature of the roost. Cities are heat islands, several degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside, ideal places in which to spend winter nights. Flocks attract predators but there is security in numbers. Owls and hawks may target roosts but there are so many potential victims that the risk to any one individual is small and a bird can sleep in peace.

Access to the grapevine may be another advantage. It’s impossible to prove the theory, but birds which have found rich pickings will look fit and well to their less successful peers.

By following well-fed individuals in the morning, roosting starlings may be led to food.