The seeds of this book were sown during the writing of the first chapter of the 1984 monograph The Starling (Feare 1984), but two subsequent events provided the impetus to commence what became a long gestation period; first, a chance meeting of the authors in the Natural History Museum in Tring, when both of us were working on starlings in the collection, and second, a stimulus from Christopher Helm (‘If you don’t do it, I’ll find someone else!’) to write a book for his series of identification guides.
During the gestation period, we have been fortunate to have been able to investigate some aspects of the biology and behaviour of several starling species, thereby giving us the opportunity to gain insight into some of the relationships between them. These studies involved both observations of birds in the wild and also in collections of captives. CF enjoyed valuable field trips with Kang Nee and Kamol Komolphalin in South-East Asia, and with Salvador Peris in Spain, and was able to study captive starlings with the help of Jim Irwin-Davies (Harewood Bird Garden, Yorkshire), Alan Martin (Merley Bird Gardens, Hampshire), Peter Olney (Zoological Society of London, Regents Park), and Roger Wilkinson (North of England Zoological Society, Chester). AC was assisted in field studies in Africa by Ludwig Coetzer, N Collins, Pat Hulley, Hanna Hofshi, Penn Lloyd, Gimme Walter and Francis White, and his research was funded by BirdLife South Africa (formerly the Southern African Ornithological Society), Rhodes University, and the Foundation for Research Development.
CF received considerable help from staff at the Natural History Museum, Tring, during studies of specimens and when consulting literature, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance at various stages of Robert Prys-Jones, Effie Warr, Michael Walters and Peter Colston. Michael Wilson (University of Oxford, Edward Grey Institute) kindly kept CF informed of publications in the Russian literature. Karl Schuchmann (Bonn), Michel Louette (Tervuren), Peter Colston and Anne Vale (Tring), Herbert Schifter (Vienna), Wesley Lanyon and Dave Willard (Chicago), Janet Hinshaw and Bob Payne (Michigan), Mary LeCroy and Bob Dickerman (New York), RW James and Charles MacInnes (Toronto), Phil Angle and Richard Zusi (Washington), Kit Hustler and Des Jackson (Bulawayo), Denise Brinkrow and the late JM Winterbottom (Cape Town), Aldo Berruti and John Mendelsohn (Durban), Carl Vernon (East London), Leon Bennun (Nairobi), Tamar Cassidy and Alan Kemp (Pretoria), and Joris Komen (Windhoek) enabled AC to examine material from museum collections.
Constructive help of many kinds has been freely given by many people, practically, in discussion and in correspondence, especially Geoff Carey, Roger Caton, Rene Dekker, Alec Forbes-Watson, Elaine Gill, Mike Grant, Julian Hume, Carl Jones, Kamol Komolphalin, Frank Lambert, Kang Nee, Juan Pascual, Salvador Peris, Richard Ranft and Yoram Yom-Tov. Neil Baker, Richard Brooke, Richard Dean, John Dittami, Francoise Dowsett-Lemaire, P Herroelen, Hanna Hofshi, Alan Kemp, Rick Nuttall, Vicky Roth, Roger Shanteau, Jack Skead, Walter Sontag, Jean Spearpoint, Warwick Tarboton and Carl Vernon contributed unpublished observations of African birds.
Carl Vernon and the late Richard Brooke read and commented on the text for the African species. Sections of the text on Asian species were read by Kang Nee, Juan Pascual and Salvador Peris, and some introductory chapters were read by Elaine Gill.
The authors are delighted to thank the artists for what we consider to be some of the best illustrations we have seen of starlings, some of whose characters are difficult to capture in artwork. The artists were able to examine specimens and discuss problems thanks to the help of staff at the Natural History Museum, Tring, Howard Mendel and David Lampard of Ipswich Museum, Mike Hounsome of Manchester Museum, Tony Parker at the National Museums and Galleries of Merseyside at Liverpool, staff of the American Museum of Natural History, Roger Wilkinson at Chester Zoo, Peter Hayman and Craig Robson.
CF is especially grateful to Elaine Gill for putting up with the disruption to our life during the writing of the book, and in particular for her encouragement and support throughout. AC appreciates Cheryl’s tolerance of the many weekends away, and the help which she, Roland and Andrew have given on many occasions.