Nest Herbs Encourage Starling Parents to Incubate Their Eggs

The presence of aromatic greens in with other building materials increased the time birds sat on their eggs, improving the health of the hatchlings.

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Male European starlings—small, greenish-black birds with a hint of iridescence—may not be much to look at. But they do like to add a little flourish to their nests: fresh herbs. Originally considered a strategy for attracting a mate, the use of aromatics in nest building is now thought to have an additional role in keeping baby starlings healthy.

“People have proposed that the birds add the herbs to their nests because they improve the fitness of their offspring,” says Juan Vicente Gallego Rubalcaba, a biologist at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid who studies the adaptive strategies of birds. Indeed, studies have shown that starlings raised in herbed dwellings tend to fare better—having fewer parasites and weighing more—than youngsters brought up in nonherbed nests.

What researchers haven’t been able to pinpoint is how exactly the herbs exert an influence over baby birds’ health. To answer this question, Helga Gwinner of ...

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Meet the Author

  • Ashley Yeager

    Ashley started at The Scientist in 2018. Before joining the staff, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, a writer at the Simons Foundation, and a web producer at Science News, among other positions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Ashley edits the Scientist to Watch and Profile sections of the magazine and writes news, features, and other stories for both online and print.

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