Starlings Gather on the Ancient Spire

Starlings Gather on the Ancient Spire

A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass.
Symbolically, spires have two functions. The first is to proclaim a martial power. A spire, with its reminiscence of the spear point, gives the impression of strength. The second is to reach up toward the skies.[citation needed] The celestial and hopeful gesture of the spire is one reason for its association with religious buildings.[citation needed] A spire on a church or cathedral is not just a symbol of piety, but is often seen as a symbol of the wealth and prestige of the order, or patron who commissioned the building. As an architectural ornament, spires are most consistently found on Christian churches, where they replace the steeple. Although any denomination may choose to use a spire instead of a steeple, the lack of a cross on the structure is more common in Roman Catholic and other pre-Reformation churches. The battlements of cathedrals featured multiple spires in the Gothic style (in imitation of the secular military fortress).


Starlings in the New World: The year was 1890 when an eccentric drug manufacturer named Eugene Schieffelin entered New York City's Central Park and released some 60 European starlings he had imported from England. In 1891 he loosed 40 more. Schieffelin's motives were as romantic as they were ill fated: he hoped to introduce into North America every bird mentioned by Shakespeare.Skylarks and song thrushes failed to thrive, but the enormity of his success with starlings continues to haunt us. This is worth observing as an object lesson in how even noble intentions can lead to disaster when humanity meddles with nature.
Today the starling is ubiquitous, with its purple and green iridescent plumage and its rasping, insistent call. It has distinguished itself as one of the costliest and most noxious birds on our continent.
Roosting in hordes of up to a million, starlings can devour vast stores of seed and fruit, offsetting whatever benefit they confer by eating insects. In a single day, a cloud of omnivorous starlings can gobble up 20 tons of potatoes. What they don't eat they defile with droppings. They are linked to numerous diseases, including histoplasmosis, a fungal lung ailment that afflicts agricultural workers; toxoplasmosis, especially dangerous to pregnant women, and Newcastle disease, which kills poultry. Starlings bully several native species, often rudely evicting bluebirds and woodpeckers.
In 1960 a Lockheed Electra plummeted seconds after taking off from Logan Airport in Boston, killing 62 people. Some 10,000 starlings had flown straight into the plane, crippling its engines. Any bird in the wrong place can pose such a danger, but it is the ever-present starling that pilots fret over the most.
As usual in the history of man's importation of species across oceans and continents, Schieffelin was not thinking of long-term consequences. For the first six years after he released his birds they rarely strayed beyond Manhattan. The first nesting pair, discovered in the eaves of the Museum of Natural History, across the street from Central Park, inspired jubilation.
Once the starlings began to spread, though, their numbers and range soon exploded. They were able to adapt to climates as varied as Alaska's and Florida's; they were willing and able to eat anything; and they reproduced with startling vigor. ''Starlings,'' one ornithologist wrote, ''do nothing in moderation.''