The bird was an excellent choice, Baptista explains. Starlings pass down musical traditions, older males to younger males and older females to younger females. These birds mimic skillfully and abundantly - frogs, goats, and whistling shepherds. Baptista cites a study of 80 wild starlings in France that turned up 105 imitations of other species. For starlings, music brings rewards.
Females favor males that sing longer, more complex songs.
Mozart seems to have admired his avian companion's musical skills. One of his notebooks records a passage from the last movement of the Piano Concerto in G Major and the same passage as the starling revised it. The bird imitated it closely but changed the sharps to flats. When the starling died, Mozart held graveside ceremonies, singing hymns and reciting a poem he'd written for the fallen songster. Mozart wrote it only 8 days after the death of his bird, and it includes such starlinglike bits as intertwined tunes, off-key recapitulations, and an abrupt ending.