Plant Matter

• The vegetarian portion of a European starling's diet includes a variety of seeds, grains and particularly fruits. Starlings will eat the fruit of such species as holly, hackberry, sumac, Virginia creeper, mulberry, tupelo and blackberry. The starling also has a taste for both cultivated and wild cherries.
  
  

Time Frame

• Starling Talk cites a bulletin put out by the United States Department of Agriculture which reports that the European starling helps control a variety of insect pests. The starling consumes as much as 90 percent of its diet in the form of insects, spiders, millipedes, carrion and other animal matter during the months of April and May. In addition, about 42 percent of the starling's intake is bugs, with October being the month in which the birds devour the most insects.
  
  

Benefits

• The starling is a predator of some serious insect pests, which helps make it of some benefit. The Japanese beetle is one of these, as is the clover-leaf weevil, another import from Europe which, like the starling, has established itself in North America. Other insect threats to agriculture that the starling consumes include wireworms, leaf beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, cutworms and ground beetles.
  
  

Feeding Behavior

• The European starling will hop around foraging for food on lawns, in meadows, fields and other locations where the vegetation cover is short. The starling pokes around in the soil in search of insects, using a strong bill to try to dislodge any hiding in the ground. The European starling has no qualms about looking for food as part of a group of other species, often hanging around with cowbirds, blackbirds, grackles, house sparrows, pigeons, crows and robins. The starling is a frequent visitor to bird feeders in cold climates, eating whatever seeds that wind up on the ground, as well as suet.
  
  

Considerations

• Starlings have keenly developed senses of taste, with the bird able to taste sugar, salt, citric acids and other compounds. The Chipper Woods Bird Observatory says that the European starling seems to have a distinct dislike for grape flavoring. It is possible to discourage starlings from roosting in huge flocks in an area by spraying it with a grape-flavored mist.