rosy starling

The Rosy Starlings are used in China to eliminate the locusts which are considered crop pests. Artificial nests are built to attract the starlings, and today, the locusts’ populations are insufficient to feed the birds. That involves large decrease of insecticide use and a greatly successful plan. Adult male in breeding plumage has black head, neck, throat and upper breast. The head shows elongated feathers on the nape, forming an erectile crest. On the upperparts, back and rump are glossy pink. Wings are blackish-brown with glossy green secondaries. The uppertail is blackish-brown too, with green iridescence. On the underparts, lower breast and belly are pale pink. The undertail-coverts are blacksih, as the thighs. The bill is pink with black base in breeding plumage. The eyes are dark brown. Legs and feet are yellowish-brown. In non-breeding plumage, the male has tipped-grey black feathers, tipped-brown pink feathers, brown-tipped undertail-coverts, and buff margins on flight feathers and wing coverts. The bill is dark brown to blacksih in autumn and brownish-pink in winter.The female has similar plumage but slightly duller and she has shorter crest. In spring, she has mostly brown throat, nape and undertail-coverts with buffy feather tips. The juvenile has sandy grey-brown upperparts, paler rump with pinkish-buff wash, brown wings and tail with pale buff edges. The underparts are pale buff, chin and throat are paler with slightly scaled pattern. The eye is surrounded by pale eye-ring. The bill is horn-coloured. Legs and feet are yellowish-brown. The first winter has dull black head, short crest, back and underparts browner than adults and pale-tipped undertail-coverts.

The Rosy Starling frequents the open steppes during the breeding season, where it can find abundant Orthopterans. The colonies are often established near water and in valleys.
They move to more forested areas after breeding. Outside this period, this species occurs in several types of habitats, as well wooded areas as open country.
They roost at night with other Sturnidae species in trees, thorny bushes and reedbeds, and often gather at daytime roosts near their feeding areas.

The Rosy Starling feeds primarily on flightless locusts and other grasshoppers. It also takes bugs, ants, beetles, moths and caterpillars. Spiders, woodlice and snails are eaten too. After the breeding season, it consumes fruits (wild and cultivated species), seeds of cereals and nectar from several flowers. It may follow cattle. It forages in flocks, sometimes very large ones.

Flight call is a loud clear ki-ki-ki.

The rosy starling (Pastor roseus) is a passerine bird in the starling family Sturnidae also known as the rose-coloured starling or rose-coloured pastor. The species was recently placed in its own monotypic genus Pastor and split from Sturnus. This split is supported by recent studies though other related species within its new genus are not yet known for certain. The adult rosy starling is highly distinctive with its pink body pale orange legs and bill and glossy black head wings and tail. Males in the breeding season have elongated head feathers which form a wispy crest that is fluffed and more prominent when the bird gets excited. In winter the crest is shorter and the edges of black feathers within the plumage become paler as the edges of these feather erode. Winter plumage in males is comparatively dull. Females in contrast have a short crest and lack the sharp separation between pink and black. The juvenile birds can be distinguished from common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) by its obviously paler plumage and short yellow bill. Young birds moult into a subdued version of the adult plumage in autumn yet these lack the crest. They do not acquire their adult plumage until they are nearly one year old in females and nearly two years in males. The latter grow plumage very similar to adult females in their second year but are distinguished by longer crests and noticeably pale feather edges than female juvenile birds.