While males and females are similar in colour, the males have long hackle feathers on their breasts. In winter, bills are dark brown, turning yellow with the approach of spring. One difference in appearance between the males and females is the spot at the base of the bill - it is bluish in males and reddish in females. During the breeding season, the male's skin is often bright yellow, blue or red. In its breeding plumage, the male wattled starling from Africa and the Middle East has a bare yellow head with black wattles on its chin and forehead.
Starlings are also city dwellers though, fond of roosting and nesting on or inside buildings.
It is widely known that starlings occupy the ledges in London's Trafalgar Square, seemingly oblivious to the noise below and the flashing neon lights. Starlings build bulky, untidy nests. Eggs, usually in groups of five and pale, bluish-green in colour, are generally incubated by the females, with the newly born being tended by both mom and dad. Starlings and solutions Writes Andrew Branson, editor of The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Birds . At dusk in a large European city, the red sky is darkened by a vast, swirling flock of birds.