Meet Morty

STEPHANIE WEST
Blendon Woods Naturalist

“I’m invasive, I’m invasive, I’m invasive.”

The little voice behind my chair repeats this phrase over and over, interspersed with random “hellos,” and a hauntingly realistic wood thrush song. It’s punctuated by something that resembles my text tone, R2-D2 beeps, a host of far more irritating noises, and also some unintelligible words that I think he strung together himself.

He’s not wrong, though. The tiny chatterbox is indeed an invasive species. He’s a European starling. We found him last summer as a slate grey fledgling, begging people for food on the disk golf course at Blendon Woods. “Definitely not normal bird behavior,” I said to the ranger who called the office to ask me to assess the situation.

Starlings, it turns out, easily imprint on people if they are hand-raised from a young age. We will never know exactly how he ended up at Blendon Woods, so I can only speculate. Maybe someone who lives nearby hand raised him, then released him. He was fully feathered and flighted, so he could have flown here. Or maybe someone brought him to the park to “live in the wild.” This happens a lot, with all sorts of animals. Either way, he was in no way prepared to live on his own, as he was starving and oblivious to predators.

Now, any bluebird-loving naturalist in her right mind should have been happy to have one more baby starling depart the state of Ohio forever, but when he squawked and gaped his yellow maw at me, the mom instincts kicked right in. So I tucked him in the minivan, drove him back to the nature center, and filled his crop with bugs and cat food. And next the unspeakable happened: I named him. I named him Mortimer – or Morty for short. There was no turning back now.

Like a good interpreter, my mind instantly started imagining the unique programming possibilities with a tame starling at the nature center! People would love it!

I’d like to insert a little disclaimer here: I’ve worked with birds, personally and professionally, for over 30 years. So to me this felt less like “here’s a hairbrained idea” and more like “what a wonderment that someone dropped a fully imprinted and tame bird in our lap!” I’m grateful my manager was supportively inclined toward the latter as well!

So after quarantining and awaiting approval on my porch for a few weeks, Morty came to live at the Blendon Woods Nature Center as a program bird.

But you’re probably still wondering, what good is a live starling?

Halfway through February alone, more than 150 people have overheard him singing and accepted an invitation to come into the office to meet him. Then we can talk about the damage done by a species that was intentionally introduced to the US over 100 years ago. They take resources from native birds, even killing them to steal their nesting cavities; they damage buildings with their feces and spread diseases; they are the only vertebrate animal with its own pesticide—and despite this, we still can’t eradicate them.

Some visitors who pay little attention to wild birds are seeing a starling for the first time, while others are already familiar with the harm they do. But none can take their eyes off this frenetic ball of feathers while I talk.

Then, we explore the emotional gray area of starlings. Yes, they are invasive, but they are also subtly gorgeous, with iridescent feathers that shimmer in the light, and the striking white dots that earned them their name. Morty often obliges with an impromptu song or an impressive mimicry demo, delighting audiences young and old. We also talk about how he ended up in our care, and how many animals suffer worse fates because of people abandoning them in the park. Sometimes, I even mention that ironically, despite their abundance in North America, starling populations are actually in decline in their native range.

Occasionally, if a calm attentive audience is present, Morty can come out of his cage to demonstrate some natural behaviors. He will fly to the floor to strut around looking for food pellets, then fly back to an outstretched hand on cue. He stuffs his pointy beak into my fist to pry it open for food, just like a wild starling would do looking for bugs in the ground. He’ll fly back and forth from any perch in the room to demonstrate his agility.

He will also hop onto a scale for husbandry purposes, get into his crate on cue (necessary for when he travels to off-site programs) and get back into his cage just as readily. We’re also working on catching food in the air (like he might catch a bug) and repeating words on cue. He’s pretty amazing for a tiny, free-flighted, skittish bird!

Hopefully, visitors leave the office thoughtful, maybe even conflicted. Do I hate starlings? Love starlings? Morty is cute, but starlings kill bluebirds and wreak havoc at my feeders! I had no idea they were so beautiful up close, I always thought they were gross. Or maybe the next time that visitor who has never paid attention to birds before sees black birds on a power line, perhaps they will pause to wonder, “Are those starlings?”

I know not everyone who meets Morty will have that wow! moment and continue to contemplate starlings after their visit, but I like to think that the unique experience of getting inches away from this amazing feathered creature will spark a few people to think about how they view our relationship with wildlife. I know Morty was a hit with at least one person who I overheard telling her family, “I didn’t wanna come here, but that was the coolest thing here. That was the only cool thing here!”

Good work, Morty! You may be invasive, but you’ve made a lasting impression!