Cape Glossy Starling

As the weather cools down, I see less LBJ's other small birds. We still see many raptors and down at the river are the Bee-eaters, Fork-tailed Drongos and Mountain Chats. However, here on the lawn and in the field next door, the Cape Glossy Starling still brightens my bird-hungry day.

The Cape starling is found in the southern part of Africa. Its range encompasses the extreme south of Gabon, the west and south of Angola, the extreme south of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and South Africa. It is a vagrant to the Republic of the Congo but does not breed there. In the other countries in its range it is a resident (non-migratory) species and its total extent of occurrence is about 3,000,000 square kilometers (1,200,000 sq mi). The Cape starling is found where trees are found in which it can roost and nest. It is not a bird of dense forest or of pasture and is not associated with any particular plant type. It does occur in open woodland, plantations, Savannah, bushveld, rough grassland, parks and gardens and is quite numerous in the central Kalahari where isolated trees occur.^[5]

I copied and pasted the above from Wikipedia to show the common status and ordinariness of the Cape Glossy Starling. 



Above is a map of South Africa and the irony is that in the southernmost part of the country - the Cape - (between the letters CT and PE) the Cape Glossy Starling doesn't occur.

Nevertheless, this starling is striking in that it's iridescent blue-green plumage with yellow eyes catches your attention every time. 

Cape Glossy Starling

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