Daurian Starling Agropsar sturninus 北椋鳥
Category I. Uncommon autumn passage migrant, rare in spring, with a few winter records. Occurs in open country.
IDENTIFICATION
Feb. 2017, Perak, Malaysia. Dave Bakewell.
16–19 cm. Small, short-tailed starling with a large dark eye contrasting with pale head. Upperparts and tail dark, rump contrastingly pale, scapulars broadly tipped white, wings dark.
Males (top and bottom) has small patch of glossy purple feathers on rear crown, glossy purple feathers on upper mantle, purple lower mantle and back, and pale grey underparts. Bill black in breeding season, with pale base during non-breeding; legs greenish-grey.
Females and immature birds (middle bird) have pale brown crown and nape becoming darker on mantle and back, dark brown wings and tail, less extensive white on scapulars and brown tail.
VOCALISATIONS
The calls are most similar in HK to those of Red-billed Starling, though slightly fuller and richer.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
Favours open-country habitat but requires trees for perching. As with all the small starlings, most records are from the Deep Bay area, with the other favoured site being Long Valley. It is rarely seen outside the New Territories except on Po Toi, where it is regular, though not annual. There are also a few records on other islands, including Lantau (Mui Wo) and Tung Lung Chau.
OCCURRENCE
Daurian Starling is largely a passage migrant that is much more common in autumn (Figure 1). Extreme dates in this season are 28 August 2015 and 13 November 2013. The majority of records fall between the third week of August and the second week of November, peaking in the last week of September and first week of October. There have been a small number of winter records since 2005 from 22 January to 10 February. In spring, it occurs in approximately 50% of years. Extreme dates are 27 March 2007 and 21 May 2007.
Numbers vary but are generally low, with the peak aggregate weekly count each year generally below 15. The largest flock recorded held a minimum of 50 birds and remained briefly at Long Valley on 26 September 2003. In 2002 up to 40 birds were at the same site during 2-10 October. Other high counts include 13 birds at Tai Po Waterfront Park on 16 September 2013 and 12 at Mai Po on 18 October 1999. Most other sightings concern singles or a few individuals.
It was first recorded on 25 September 1977, when a flock of 35 birds was seen near Mai Po.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
Gregarious, usually in small flocks. Highly arboreal, typically feeding in small groups of trees on the edges of fishponds or in wet agricultural areas. Often roosts with other starlings, though it is more likely to be seen in single-species groups in the daytime. Omnivorous, observed feeding on fruits of banyan trees Ficus microcarpa and Sapium sebiferum.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds in east Mongolia, southeast Russia, northeast and central China and North Korea; winters in southeast Asia and Greater Sundas (Craig and Feare 2020). In China it breeds from the northeast south to the Yellow River and is a migrant south of there (Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend unknown.
Figure 1.
Craig, A. J. F. and C. J. Feare (2020). Daurian Starling (Agropsar sturninus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.dausta1.01
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
