Blue, Red and Orange Birds Demand Starling Pick a Side, Starling Asks Whether Anyone Has Checked the Feeder for Seeds
Britain's increasingly well-organised bird population is thrown into crisis by one iridescent creature who seems far more interested in lunch than belonging
LONDON — Britain's avian political establishment was thrown into confusion on Tuesday after a starling declined, for the fourth time this week, to identify as blue, red or orange, and instead flew round the back of a Tesco Express, where witnesses say he spent eleven minutes working a chip free from a flattened receipt.
The incident has reopened a national debate over whether birds should be made to declare their plumage before being allowed anywhere near a public feeder. Bluebirds accused the starling of dodging an important conversation about fairness. Cardinals accused him of refusing to defend freedom. Orioles said his silence threatened community, and asked that this be minuted.
The starling has issued no manifesto. He was later seen trying to prise a cheese cube out of a discarded meal deal. His position on most things remains unclear. On cheese, he is firmly in favour.
A bird that asks if the feeder has any seeds in it is, by modern standards, an extremist. -- Alan Nafzger
The Bird Feeder Is Apparently No Longer for Feeding Birds
The row began at a municipal feeder in a small park in Zone 3, where delegates from Britain's three largest feather communities had gathered to settle once and for all what a sunflower seed means.
A bluebird landed first. "This feeder," she announced, "represents fairness."
A cardinal arrived a moment later. "This feeder represents freedom."
An oriole settled on the railing and said it represented community, and that everyone was welcome to join him in a circle.
Then the starling dropped into the middle of them, looked at the feeder, looked at the assembled delegates, and said, "It represents sunflower seeds."
Nobody spoke. The bluebird let go of her leaflet. The cardinal stopped mid-song. The oriole looked as though somebody had said something about his mother.
In a single sentence the starling had dragged economics into a conversation that had been getting along perfectly well without any measurable connection to reality. Political ornithologists call this extremely dangerous. The modern feeder, they explain, is not a wooden box with food in it. It is a symbol. The perch is opportunity. The roof is structural inequality. The squirrel guard is institutional resilience. Whoever tops it up is either a generous stakeholder or an unelected oligarch, depending on which bird newsletter you take.
The starling's mistake was asking the one question nobody at a conference wants asked: "Is anybody going to eat this?"
Experts Fear the Starling May Be Practising Common Sense Without a Licence
Dr Nigel Featherstone, senior lecturer in Applied Avian Identity at the University of North Islington Polytechnic, called the starling's behaviour "deeply problematic, because it reduces a rich socio-feathered discourse to calories."
"We cannot simply say birds are hungry," he explained. "Hunger sits inside a wider framework of access, representation and the legacy of unequal branch allocation."
Asked whether the starling might just want his breakfast, Dr Featherstone frowned. "That is precisely the kind of reductive language that prevents progress."
The starling then ate six seeds, and by all accounts felt less hungry. The finding has not been peer reviewed, because everyone involved is furious.
Why One Plain Bird Scares Three Organised Flocks
Part of the trouble is that British bird society has become extremely well organised. Blue birds know they are blue. Red birds know they are red. Orange birds know they are orange. Each flock has newsletters, a podcast, a conference, a tote bag, and at least one retired professor ready to explain why the other two colours endanger the nesting season.
Into this tidy arrangement flies the starling, who is a problem for the stationery alone. His feathers look black from one angle, purple from another, green in sunlight, bronze after rain, and now and then like petrol on a puddle. He is also a gifted mimic. According to the RSPB, starlings can copy everything from other birds to car alarms, which means he can sound like any of the three flocks and join none of them. Officials find this unnerving. The British Trust for Ornithology adds that starlings gather in their tens of thousands at dusk and move as one without a single steering group, a feat no committee of any colour has ever matched.
On the official paperwork, he is asked to tick one box:
FEATHER COLOUR:
☐ BLUE
☐ RED
☐ ORANGE
The starling writes: "Depends where the sun is."
This is rejected as an incomplete answer. Civil servants have proposed adding a fourth box marked "Difficult."
Starling Accused of Changing Colour Halfway Through Interview
BBC Bird Politics invited him on to its flagship Tuesday morning programme, where presenter Robin Peck wanted to know why he would not commit to a recognised feather community.
"I have feathers," said the starling.
"Yes, but what do they mean?"
"They keep me warm."
"Yesterday you looked green."
"I was standing by a window."
"Today you're purple."
"The sun moved."
"So your position has changed."
"My position changed. I turned round."
Social media reported this within minutes as a humiliating U-turn. BlueBird News led with STARLING REFUSES TO RULE OUT RED PLUMAGE. RedBird Daily countered with STARLING'S GREEN TINT EXPOSES BLUEBIRD LINKS. OrangeBirdNow ran a 4,700-word investigation headed WHO FUNDS THE STARLING?
The answer appears to be nobody. He lives in a gutter.
Everyone Wants Him, and Nobody Can Say What He Gets
Having failed to classify him, the flocks switched to recruitment.
The bluebirds went first, offering him a place in their fairness movement. They also tried to enrol him as a victim, which he turned down. "You occupy a historically complicated space," explained one activist. "I occupy a drainpipe," said the starling. "No, culturally." "It's still a drainpipe."
She pointed out that starlings have faced real prejudice, including aggressive waving from pensioners guarding garden feeders. The starling agreed. "Sometimes people shout at us." "And how does that make you feel?" "Further away, usually."
Do you feel unheard? "I'm one of the loudest birds in Britain." Do you feel unseen? "There are ten thousand of us on that power line." At this point the interview was abandoned, as the starling was being unhelpfully literal.
The cardinals tried a warmer approach. "You don't need all this bluebird nonsense," said Sir Reginald Redbreast of the Institute for Traditional Nesting. "What you need is freedom."
"Can I eat those seeds?"
"Those are donor seeds."
"Can I eat the chips?"
"Those are private property."
"Can I sit on that branch?"
"That branch belongs to the club."
"So what am I free to do?"
"Agree with us."
The starling flew off, and the move was widely interpreted as hostility to liberty.
The orioles promised something gentler. "We believe nobody should feel excluded," said spokesperson Clementine Beak. "We meet every Thursday."
"I can't do Thursdays. I'll be eating."
"There's food at the meeting. Ethically sourced seeds."
"How many?"
"We haven't finalised the seed allocation framework."
"So, none."
"Not yet."
The orioles later issued a statement regretting the starling's unwillingness to engage constructively.
The Starling Turns Out to Be Everyone's Secret Agent
Witnesses have noticed the starling talking to bluebirds, cardinals and orioles, sometimes on the same afternoon. This has prompted fears of infiltration. Bluebirds suspect he is secretly red. Cardinals suspect he is secretly blue. The orioles suspect he is trying to unsettle both.
The starling says he was asking where the bakery bins are. Nobody believes him. Modern life has taught everyone to look for a hidden motive, because accepting that somebody just wants a pastry would make roughly sixty per cent of commentary unnecessary.
A Prat.UK poll of 1,200 birds found that 94 per cent of bluebirds think the starling should acknowledge the deeper meaning of the feeder. Ninety-one per cent of cardinals want him to defend seed ownership. Eighty-eight per cent of orioles want a dialogue. Ninety-nine per cent of starlings wanted everybody to move, because somebody had dropped half a sausage roll by the bins.
Dr Featherstone said this could point to "a worrying disengagement from formal avian institutions." It could also point to sausage rolls. Deductive reasoning remains controversial.
The Matter Is Referred to Westminster, Where Nobody Has Any Crisps
By Wednesday the row had reached the House of Commons, where members of every colour demanded that the starling clarify his position. One asked whether he backed blue-feather fairness. Another asked him to condemn attacks on red nesting tradition. A third wanted assurances that orange communities would be consulted at length.
The starling hopped onto the dispatch box. "Do you have any crisps?"
There was uproar. "This is Parliament," shouted an honourable member.
"So, no crisps?"
"No."
"Then why am I here?"
The question has been referred to committee.
Researchers at the House of Commons Library have noted that for most of the postwar years the feeder was run by one of two large flocks, while the present perches are busier and noisier than anyone planned for. Campaigners at the Electoral Reform Society would like every bird's seed counted more fairly. The starling would like some seed, and says he is open to the counting being done afterwards.
Somebody Finally Looks Inside the Feeder
It was at the height of the Commons uproar that a young sparrow, who had slipped in unnoticed during a point of order, did something no delegate had thought to do. He flew back to the park, climbed into the feeder and had a look.
It was empty. It had been empty since March.
The elderly lady with the flask who used to fill it had stopped coming when her knee went, and no flock had noticed, because no flock had been eating from it. They had been holding conferences in front of it. Eleven working groups had been established to discuss what it meant. Forty-one newsletters had been sent. One tote bag, reading "Seeds Are Political," had been shipped in from a supplier in Leicester.
Not one bird had thought to check for dinner.
The Office for National Statistics tracks the price of everyday groceries every month, and for some time now the numbers have moved in the direction the starling was already grumbling about, which is up. The ONS publishes it all in tables, so that anyone wishing to know what a packet of crisps costs may find out. Few of the flocks had looked. The starling did not need to. He had been paying it at the till behind Tesco.
Tesco Emerges as the Unlikely Capital of Avian Diplomacy
Meanwhile the back car park of a Tesco Express has become a refuge for the politically homeless. There are no seminars. There is no working group. Nobody asks what your feathers mean. The only entry requirement is being able to recognise the sound of a packet opening.
Bluebirds drift in now and then. So do cardinals. The orioles stop by, though they say it is only to listen. The pigeons are always there, because the pigeons worked the whole system out centuries ago. No pigeon has ever asked whether a chip stands for justice. A pigeon knows what a chip stands for. Lunch. It may explain why pigeons now live in every major city on earth while the think tanks are still publishing papers.
Late on Tuesday, reporters tracked the starling down beside a trolley wheel and asked whether he had a message for a divided nation of birds. He thought about it, swallowed something that had once been a chip, and said: "Stop asking me what colour I am. Ask whether there's enough food."
"Is that a political statement?"
"No."
"Economic?"
"No."
"Cultural?"
"No."
"Then what is it?"
The starling looked honestly puzzled. "I'm a bird."
It was the most offensive thing anyone had said all week.
The Outsider's Advantage
The starling's great strength is that he belongs everywhere and nowhere. He is adaptable, noisy and inconvenient. He changes colour with the light. He can imitate the other birds without ever joining their party, and he travels in vast crowds while somehow keeping the air of a man who has wandered into the wrong pub.
Everyone else treats plumage as destiny. He treats it as feathers. Everyone else sees an ideology in the feeder. He sees breakfast. The others demand loyalty and he wants chips, which is probably why they find him so threatening. A society built around choosing sides has no idea what to do with a creature who doesn't find the choice interesting.
The bluebirds say there are only blue solutions. The cardinals say there are only red ones. The orioles say everybody should sit in a circle and talk about orange ones. The starling quietly notices that somebody has dropped a sandwich, and goes and gets it.
He wins, but not because he is wiser or nobler or leading some heroic new movement. He wins because everyone else spent months arguing about what the feeder meant, and he was the only one who remembered what it was for.
Humorous Observations
- Eleven working groups, forty-one newsletters and one tote bag, and not one beak ever went inside the box.
- "It's still a drainpipe" is the most reasonable sentence spoken in public life this year.
- Pigeons have governed every city on earth for centuries without publishing a single manifesto.
- Nobody can say who funds the starling, but the chip behind Tesco was clearly a donation.
- The orioles' seed allocation framework is expected to be finalised shortly after the seeds go off.
- If a bird turns round and the sun changes its colour, that is called Tuesday, not a U-turn.
- Any flock that needs a fourth box marked "Difficult" already knows what the answer is.
Disclaimer
This article concerns birds, bird feeders, chips, Tesco car parks and the dangerous consequences of allowing a hungry starling near symbolic sunflower seeds. Any resemblance between these birds and human political movements is entirely the reader's fault, and possibly evidence that everyone needs lunch.
This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world's oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer. No starlings were asked to disclose their voting history, although several attempted to steal the questionnaire.
— prat.UK https://prat.uk/blue-red-and-orange-birds-demand-starling-pick-a-side/
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