Starlings are the single solitary reason I got back into airgun hunting.
I grew up on a farm, out in the country and naturally I hunted. My father had guns so I learned how to shoot from an early age. By the time I was ten I was pretty nasty with the old single-shot lever Daisy BB gun that shot 3 inch groups at 5 feet. Still, I will never forget the first bird I shot and killed with that first BB gun. I was 7 or 8 and I picked that bird up and it died in my hands and I cried. I remember my Daddy was standing right beside me and told me that taking an animals life was a big deal and I should only kill what I planned to eat.
Definitely gave me a little lesson about life and death and made me think twice and was more conscious about what I killed.
Having said that let me tell you why I got back into airgunning... I told this story in another thread but not with these details...it's a testimony from personal experience as I witnessed these terrible "Cockaroaches with feathers" actions first hand.
There was a huge maple tree in the backyard of a house I rented in an old subdivision right outside of Nashville TN. This maple tree had to be hundreds of years old and had lots of broken open branches with cavities and open holes in the tree. A pair of mated screech owls came in and nested in the end of one of the open broken branches that stuck out over where I parked. Ended up with 2 cute little babies that would come out to the edge of the opening in the day and sit side by side waiting on the parents to come back in the evening from wherever they were during the day.
Screech owls are very rarely seen if ever. They're shy, usually nest in wooded areas, pretty much don't like to be around people in any way. These little guys got so used to me they would hunt at my feet at night and land just feet away from me on the fence or tree limbs near where I would be watching. They would make these shrill whistle noises and then dive down into the yard and stamp their feet in the grass. In the morning I would take a stick and poke around in their tiny little owl pellets that fell off of my truck under their nest and learned that all they were hunting was 1/4" long black beetles. Very interesting to observe and I was learning so much about these cool little owls. This brings me to why I grew to really love these guys and develop a pure unadulterated hatred for the evil disgusting starling.
My mother had been killed in a car wreck by drunk driver a few months before and I was really struggling. The more I learned about how shy they were and unnatural this whole thing was...maybe I was just looking for a sign...but I started thinking that maybe my mama was one of those owls. That the reason the female felt so comfortable and would sit at my feet and stare at me and shrill whistle, had something to do with my mama.
Within two weeks of the babies being born, the starlings showed up one morning. I got up like I usually did and went out the back door to smoke a cigarette and heard the most god-awful crackling squeaky chirping going on on the other side of the tree above where I parked. Walked back there and looked up and 2 Starlings were attacking the last baby owl. Before I could even think about what I should do the baby came crashing down on top of the hood of my truck and slammed into the concrete below. When I looked down there was the other one dying. The mother owl was dead on the ground and later that day I found the male against the backyard fence with a broken wing and bleeding from the neck.
When I looked up and saw how happy those two starlings were at what they had done and how they were acting twirling their wings and circles and excited chatter, a scowl drew across my face and a dark shadow fell across the very core of who I am as a man. I specifically remember feeling that same feeling towards the man who killed my mother in that car wreck.
Needless to say, the rest is history. I went to Walmart that day and bought three different of their highest-end air rifles with plans to try them all and keep the best one and take the other two back. Took about an hour to sight it in.
First one I shot was the female... right under the throat up through the top of her head...feet seized up and she hung upside down bleeding all over truck, til I put another one in her to knock her down. Proceeded to fill up a Kroger bag slam full the first day. Took a week but the male lured me in two more females. After a good solid year of laying down the law on their a#&$… I thinned them out of the neighborhood pretty good. Probably killed 500. I had no issues with it then just like I have no issues with it this morning when I took three in seven seconds sitting in my mulberry tree with my Colibri .22...an actual first ever for me btw. Son of a guns are usually real smart but these ones were so enthralled they didn't seem to notice their buddies dropping like flies.
Moral of the story is... kill every single Starling you can get in your crosshairs. Have no qualms, you're doing the world a favor.