Sal's Pix & Critter Stories

The Story of Stanley, the Metallic Starling

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Sal Badcock Studio & Gallery
Mission Beach, North Queensland, Australia
email Sal

Stanley The movie Star

Metallic Starlings are AustraliaÕs only native starlings, they live along the Northern coast and head over to PNG for Winter.
Each colony has itÕs favourite nesting tree, and they flock back and take up residence between August and March each year.
They mainly eat fruit from palms and rainforest trees, but do eat some insects. As fruit eaters, they are noted as one of our important seed dispersal birds.
Some trees will have hundreds and hundreds of nests. It is at this time that we end up with many young babies in care as many nests and babies fall out of the trees.

Our colony is living in a spectacular flame tree, it is a small colony compared with some. The adult birds have dark blue/purple/green metallic plumage with bright red piercing eyes. The juveniles that are old enough to be out of the nests are the same as the adults but with speckled feathers on their chests. The entire colony appears to look after each other and each others babies. Safety in numbers.

3rd December 2007 - Monday
2 baby Metallic starlings rescued from a fallen nest. One was already dead in the nest. The second one died the next morning, the surviving one was much bigger than the other two. By the following morning you could see evidence of pin feathers starting to grow.

10th December - Monday
Blow me down... this one has survived! Given his small size and under-development, I really didn't expect him to live.
His name is Stanley, and he has doubled in size in seven days. His eyes have just started to open. He is waking us up at 6am yelling his head off. As you can see, he has feathers happening, he is getting stronger each day.

12th December - Wednesday
He has grown even in the last 2 days. I cannot believe just how fast it is all happening. His beak is getting longer, his pin feathers on his wings have doubled in size since Monday. He is starting to try and stand, and flaps his wings. His eyes are open fully , he follows movement, but not sure how clear things are.

16th December - Sunday
Young Stanley now has full on pin feathers on his wings that are starting to bush out on the tips. He has fine fuzzy feathers developing on his back & butt. He has a rabbit friend in his box with him as he likes to crawl underneath it and snuggle. When he is hungry, he pokes his head out from under it and shouts like mad until someone feeds him.

4th January 2008 - Friday
Stanley now lives in our budgies old cage, complete with his penthouse. I have attached his "nest" and bunny to the top of the cage, and he still sleeps in it and crawls under his bunny sometimes during the day. Stanley is getting to be a big grown up bird, well at least he thinks he is.
Gotta love this photo!

5th January 2008
Our 82 year old neighbour Elaine goes and checks under the tree every day for fallen nests and babies. Today, she arrived over with another tiny baby. Her name is Scarlet. She is probably nearly a week older than Stanley when he came in. Her eyes are still closed, but she has pin feathers starting and you can see the eye slots where they will open. I didn't get a pic of her when she came in.
This is Stanley in his penthouse, with his bunny.
I have started sticking pieces of fruit onto the side of his cage to try and encourage him to eat by himself. He is so funny, he shouts long and hard at it whilst trying to work out how to eat it.

12th January 2008
Miss Scarlet is growing and getting increasingly noisy. I am sure that she and Stanley will soon be having shouting matches.

15th January 2008
Miss Scarlet is way more vocal, probably because she can hear Stanley shouting all the time. She is very very cute.

8th January 2008
As well as Stanley and Scarlet, we now have Scottie. He is an older bird and was rescued by some backbacker's near "Scottie's Bar" (hence the name, that and the cute Scottish backpacker who brought him in). Scottie really doesn't like us much as he is a much older bird, he would still be in the nest though. He has calmed down a lot over the last week and is eating by himself and also sleeping on his "nest" with his lion to keep him company. Marni is donating half her stuffed toys to the cause.

Again, as with Sweepy, it is such an honour to be able to look after our special creatures and to be learning so much about them as they grow.

Home


3rd December 2007 - Monday 2 baby Metallic starlings rescued from a fallen nest. One was already dead in the nest. The second one died the next morning, the surviving one was much bigger than the other two. By the following morning you could see evidence of pin feathers starting to grow.

	10th December - Monday Blow me down... this one has survived! Given his small size and under-development, I really didn't expect him to live. His name is Stanley, and he has doubled in size in seven days. His eyes have just started to open. He is waking us up at 6am yelling his head off. As you can see, he has feathers happening, he is getting stronger each day.

12th December - Wednesday He has grown even in the last 2 days. I cannot believe just how fast it is all happening. His beak is getting longer, his pin feathers on his wings have doubled in size since Monday. He is starting to try and stand, and flaps his wings. His eyes are open fully , he follows movement, but not sure how clear things are.

	16th December - Sunday Young Stanley now has full on pin feathers on his wings that are starting to bush out on the tips. He has fine fuzzy feathers developing on his back & butt. He has a rabbit friend in his box with him as he likes to crawl underneath it and snuggle. When he is hungry, he pokes his head out from under it and shouts like mad until someone feeds him.

4th January 2008 - Friday Stanley now lives in our budgies old cage, complete with his penthouse. I have attached his "nest" and bunny to the top of the cage, and he still sleeps in it and crawls under his bunny sometimes during the day. Stanley is getting to be a big grown up bird, well at least he thinks he is. Gotta love this photo!

	5th January 2008 Our 82 year old neighbour Elaine goes and checks under the tree every day for fallen nests and babies. Today, she arrived over with another tiny baby. Her name is Scarlet. She is probably nearly a week older than Stanley when he came in. Her eyes are still closed, but she has pin feathers starting and you can see the eye slots where they will open. I didn't get a pic of her when she came in. This is Stanley in his penthouse, with his bunny. I have started sticking pieces of fruit onto the side of his cage to try and encourage him to eat by himself. He is so funny, he shouts long and hard at it whilst trying to work out how to eat it.

	12th January 2008 Miss Scarlet is growing and getting increasingly noisy. I am sure that she and Stanley will soon be having shouting matches.

15th January 2008 Miss Scarlet is way more vocal, probably because she can hear Stanley shouting all the time. She is very very cute.

	8th January 2008 As well as Stanley and Scarlet, we now have Scottie. He is an older bird and was rescued by some backbacker's near "Scottie's Bar" (hence the name, that and the cute Scottish backpacker who brought him in). Scottie really doesn't like us much as he is a much older bird, he would still be in the nest though. He has calmed down a lot over the last week and is eating by himself and also sleeping on his "nest" with his lion to keep him company. Marni is donating half her stuffed toys to the cause.