Starlings

[spartacus]

indeed, but like all organisms on this planet, they are there for a reason/to fill a niche, granted that sometimes it doesn't fit in with Homo sapiens requirements. (Homo sapiens being way more invasive than any starling ever has)
no one likes cockroaches but cockroaches are adept at clearing up our mess & it would be an unhealthy planet without the humble maggot. I'm sure that if Beatrix Potter had dressed roaches & maggots in cute fluffy slippers & Tweed jackets they'd be far more popular ?

Keef

 

[snafflehound@work]

sure h. sap is invasive but are you suggesting, say, that possums in New Zealand, rabbits and cane toads in Australia, beavers in Chile - destroying native species left and right, driving native species further towards extinction, all because of their intervention and dispersal by dumb humans moving these creatures into an ecosystem that has not had time to adapt to them - is a good thing?

 

[Architeuthoceras]

Get a Starling flock pic for your desktop

Starlings in NG

second one down (get them while they last)

Learn more about Alien Invaders in this months NG (boy, I sound like a commercial )

There is also a picture of a couple of Irish Cuttle-Fish.

You picked a good time to bring up Starlings

 

[spartacus]

sure h. sap is invasive but are you suggesting, say, that possums in New Zealand, rabbits and cane toads in Australia, beavers in Chile - destroying native species left and right, driving native species further towards extinction, all because of their intervention and dispersal by dumb humans moving these creatures into an ecosystem that has not had time to adapt to them - is a good thing?

a good thing it certainly is not (though it is for introduced species numbers) but the only bad guys are us for meddling.
though at the end of the day it's all part of the evolutionary process.
pandas are doomed - let's move on

Keef