BEACHCOMBER

101 YEARS OLD AND STILL CHATTING TO BIRDS...

ONE of the lifetime achievements of which I am most proud was teaching a starling to fly. It happened several decades ago when I rescued a fledgling that must have fallen from its nest onto a busy road. Rather than leave it at the mercy of traffic, I took it home, fed it, looked after it to the best of my abilities and, when it was ready, taught it to fly.

Not being able to fly myself, I could not teach by example but instead let it perch on my fingers then flicked it off before catching it on the other hand. At first, the poor creature flapped its wings in panic but soon, as I had hoped, realised that flapping was the way to make progress in the air and it quickly got the hang of flying.

I mention this now because I have just seen a paper in the journal Chemosphere with the title “Environmentally relevant exposure to an antidepressant alters courtship behaviours in a songbird” which reports changes in the amount male starlings sing to females according to whether or not the females have been taking antidepressants.

The study was suggested by observing starlings at sewage plants where the birds gather in large numbers to eat worms, maggots and flies. In such locations however the grubs have been found to contain many drugs including the antidepressant Prozac which it was feared might have a bad effect on the birds.

Researchers from the University of York therefore designed an experiment to detect difference in courtship behaviour by males towards females which had or had not been given low doses of Prozac. The results clearly showed that males sang twice as much to drug-free females as to those on Prozac. They were also more aggressive towards the females who had been taking the antidepressants.

Naturally I was eager to discover what the starlings themselves thought of all this and I am delighted to say that a male and a female volunteered to talk to me in view of my previous history of kindness towards the species. First, I asked the male whether the York researchers were correct in saying that male starlings prefer their mates not to be taking antidepressants.

“Well yeah, of course,” he said. “I mean, given the choice between a depressed bird and a cheerful one, it makes sense to pick the cheerful one, doesn’t it? There’s nothing worse than taking a miserable bird back to your nest and trying to mate.”

“But the girls weren’t depressed,” I said. “They were just taking Prozac.”

“Same difference,” said the starling. “The researchers gave them Prozac, so the birds thought they must be depressed and acted accordingly. It’s a waste of time singing at birds like that, I can tell you.”

I then turned my attention to the female bird. As soon as I saw her, I had a feeling that she was one of the Prozac group. She walked towards me somewhat unsteadily and slowly, and wore a rather inane smile.

“Give us a song then, lover boy” she said to the male but he just pecked her and she ambled off into the sunset.