2024 started with a bang! On January 2, 2024 we published the results from our study on starlings in Scientific Reports. We used museum specimens and birds from the USDA to compare their morphology across the United States (through time and across the country) with those from the native range (U.K., parts of Eurasia).
Here it is: Recent beak evolution in North American starlings after invasion
In 2024, I also finished a good portion of writing my book for Columbia University Press on starling science. It will likely be published by 2026.
But starlings still continue to amaze me, in doing research for my book I learned that starlings are open-ended song learners which means they learn, add, and remix new songs throughout their whole life (unlike other birds which are closed-ended learners and learn their song at a critical period early in life and then sing the same song their whole life). And although starling males sing more elaborate songs and for longer durations than females, the females also sing and continue to learn...
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