The Starling Arrives In
p. 41 · Read in the full issue
THE European starling, long established in Eastern and Southern Australia and throughout New Zealand, and re corded from the outlying islands of Lord Howe, Macquarie, Campbell, the Antipodes and the Kermadecs, is now found to be in Fiji too — though only just.
Rev. Walter Hill, of the Method ist Mission, who combines with his official duties a watchful eye on bird-life, found the bird firmly established at Ono-i-lau, Fiji’s south-eastern extremity, when he called there in January last.
The local story is that the starl ing. which has been given a ver nacular name roughly equivalent to “woodpecker,” was first seen at Ono following a hurricane, “about 20 years ago.” No one would expect the islanders to be more accurate than that.
From those first few arrivals have bred a present-day population run ning into many hundreds, if not thousands. Most probably the bird was storm-borne from the nearby Kermadecs. No doubt future storms will help to spread it over the Fiji group, where it promises to be even less welcome than its first cousin, the Indian mynah.
Though in some respects a pest, the mynah at least has not turned to the local fruits as a diet; but those who know what the starling can do to soft fruits, farther south, will not be surprised to hear that it is already attacking bananas and paw-paws in Ono-i-lau.