Who's Really There?

It was a reasonably pleasant day today so I decided to treat myself to a little picnic, of sorts.  Sat outside in the sunshine and was casually eating my lunch, when I heard what sounded like the telephone ringing.  I got up to answer it but there was no one there, so I figured it was a wrong number and went back out to finish my lunch, only to hear it again.  After three trips into the house to answer the phone with the same results, I decided whomever was calling was just going to have to call back later.  Then I heard a rooster crowing, but there are no chickens near my house, and I wondered if perhaps it was lost or had been dropped off alongside the road.  I tried to follow the sound of its crowing and ended up at the foot of a power pole... When I heard it again, it seemed to be coming from above me and I looked up to see a bird perched on top of the pole -but this bird was not a rooster at all.  Instead I looked up to see a Starling, sitting on top of the pole, crowing!   

As I stook there listened, a second Starling joined him, obviously a female, judging by the dull brown plumage compared to his bright, irridescent feathers.  When the female arrived, the male went into his entire repertoir of "songs".  This single bird imitated a cat meowing, a dog barking, a cat yeowling (as if in a fight), a duck, a goose honking, a hawk, a meadowlark, a siren, my telephone (so that was the culprit), a cricket, a seagull, a ground squirrel chirping, air brakes from an 18 wheeler (don't know where that came from, he must have moved out here from the city), the sound of someone whistling for their dog, and a chicken clucking.

After doing a little bit of research, I found that the Starling is very closely related to the Myna Bird, which explains the abiltiy to imiatate so many sounds.  They are called "the poor man's myna".   While I have long grumbled about the Starling invasion in this country (they push local birds out of an area and take over nesting sites), they really are pretty birds and, as I discovered today, rather entertaining.