The 2017 INSPIRE/ASLE-UKI Lecture

Often overlooked, taken for granted and sometimes even shooed away from our bird tables, the common starling is, as Rachel Dowse shows in this illustrated talk, a beautiful and inspiring bird with a long cultural and linguistic heritage. From Aristotle and Pliny, to Mozart and the Mabinogion and Peter Coates and Robert Macfarlane, the starling has inspired writers, musicians, and scientists.