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During his twenty @-@ year absence from the public between 1853 and 1873 Alkan produced many of his most notable compositions , although it is a ten @-@ year gap between publication of the Op. 35 studies and that of his next group of piano works in 1856 and 1857 . Of these , undoubtedly the most significant was the enormous Opus 39 collection of twelve studies in all the minor keys , which contains the Symphony for Solo Piano ( numbers four , five , six and seven ) , and the Concerto for Solo Piano ( numbers eight , nine and ten ) . The Concerto takes nearly an hour in performance . Number twelve of Op. 39 is a set of variations , Le festin d 'Ésope ( Aesop 's Feast ) . The other components of Op. 39 are of a similar stature . Smith describes Op. 39 as a whole as " a towering achievement , gathering ... the most complete manifestation of Alkan 's many @-@ sided genius : its dark passion , its vital rhythmic drive , its pungent harmony , its occasionally outrageous humour , and , above all , its uncompromising piano writing . "

The common starling has about a dozen subspecies breeding in open habitats across its native range in temperate Europe and western Asia , and it has been introduced to Australia , New Zealand , Canada , United States , Mexico , Peru , Argentina , the Falkland Islands , Brazil , Chile , Uruguay , South Africa and Fiji . This bird is resident in southern and western Europe and southwestern Asia , while northeastern populations migrate south and west in winter within the breeding range and also further south to Iberia and North Africa . The common starling builds an untidy nest in a natural or artificial cavity in which four or five glossy , pale blue eggs are laid . These take two weeks to hatch and the young remain in the nest for another three weeks . It are normally one or two breeding attempts each year . This species is omnivorous , taking a wide range of invertebrates , as well as seeds and fruit . It is hunted by various mammals and birds of prey , and is host to a range of external and internal parasites .

The starling family , Sturnidae , is an entirely Old World group apart from introductions elsewhere , with the greatest numbers of species in Southeast Asia and sub @-@ Saharan Africa . The genus Sturnus is polyphyletic and relationships between its members are not fully resolved . The closest relation of the common starling is the spotless starling . The non @-@ migratory spotless starling may be descended from a population of ancestral S. vulgaris that survived in an Iberian refugium during an ice age retreat , and mitochondrial gene studies suggest that it could be considered as a subspecies of the common starling . It is more genetic variation between common starling populations than between nominate common starling and spotless starling . Although common starling remains are known from the Middle Pleistocene , part of the problem in resolving relationships in the Sturnidae is the paucity of the fossil record for the family as a whole .

It are several subspecies of the common starling , which vary clinally in size and the colour tone of the adult plumage . The gradual variation over geographic range and extensive intergradation means that acceptance of the various subspecies varies between authorities .

It are several methods by which common starlings obtain their food but for the most part , they forage close to the ground , taking insects from the surface or just underneath . Generally , common starlings prefer foraging amongst short @-@ cropped grasses and are often found among grazing animals or perched on their backs , where they will also feed on the mammal 's external parasites . Large flocks may engage in a practice known as " roller @-@ feeding " , where the birds at the back of the flock continually fly to the front where the feeding opportunities are best . The larger the flock , the nearer individuals are to one another while foraging . Flocks often feed in one place for some time , and return to previous successfully foraged sites .

It are three types of foraging behaviour observed in the common starling . " Probing " involves the bird plunging its beak into the ground randomly and repetitively until an insect has been found , and is often accompanied by bill gaping where the bird opens its beak in the soil to enlarge a hole . This behaviour , first described by Konrad Lorenz and given the German term zirkeln , is also used to create and widen holes in plastic garbage bags . It takes time for young common starlings to perfect this technique , and because of this the diet of young birds will often contain fewer insects . " Hawking " is the capture of flying insects directly from the air , and " lunging " is the less common technique of striking forward to catch a moving invertebrate on the ground . Earthworms are caught by pulling from soil . Common starlings that have periods without access to food , or have a reduction in the hours of light available for feeding , compensate by increasing their body mass by the deposition of fat .

Breeding takes place during the spring and summer . Following copulation , the female lays eggs on a daily basis over a period of several days . If an egg is lost during this time , she will lay another to replace it . It are normally four or five eggs that are ovoid in shape and pale blue or occasionally white , and they commonly have a glossy appearance . The colour of the eggs seems to have evolved through the relatively good visibility of blue at low light levels . The egg size is 26 @.@ 5 – 34 @.@ 5 mm ( 1 @.@ 04 – 1 @.@ 36 in ) in length and 20 @.@ 0 – 22 @.@ 5 mm ( 0 @.@ 79 – 0 @.@ 89 in ) in maximum diameter .

The common starling appears to have arrived in Fiji in 1925 on Ono @-@ i @-@ lau and Vatoa islands . It may have colonised from New Zealand via Raoul in the Kermadec Islands where it is abundant , that group being roughly equidistant between New Zealand and Fiji . Its spread in Fiji has been limited , and it are doubts about the population 's viability . Tonga was colonised at about the same date and the birds there have been slowly spreading north through the group .

The global population of the common starling is estimated to be more than 310 million individuals and its numbers are not thought to be declining significantly , so the bird is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being of least concern . It had shown a marked increase in numbers throughout Europe from the 19th century to around the 1950s and 60s . In about 1830 , S. v. vulgaris expanded its range in the British Isles , spreading into Ireland and areas of Scotland where it had formerly been absent , although S. v. zetlandicus was already present in Shetland and the Outer Hebrides . The common starling has bred in northern Sweden from 1850 and in Iceland from 1935 . The breeding range spread through southern France to northeastern Spain , and it were other range expansions particularly in Italy , Austria and Finland . It started breeding in Iberia in 1960 , while the spotless starling 's range had been expanding northward since the 1950s . The low rate of advance , about 4 @.@ 7 km ( 2 @.@ 9 mi ) per year for both species , is due to the suboptimal mountain and woodland terrain . Expansion has since slowed even further due to direct competition between the two similar species where they overlap in southwestern France and northwestern Spain .

Major declines in populations have been observed from 1980 onward in Sweden , Finland , northern Russia ( Karelia ) and the Baltic States , and smaller declines in much of the rest of northern and central Europe . The bird has been adversely affected in these areas by intensive agriculture , and in several countries it has been red @-@ listed due to population declines of more than 50 % . Numbers dwindled in the United Kingdom by more than 80 % between 1966 and 2004 ; although populations in some areas such as Northern Ireland were stable or even increased , those in other areas , mainly England , declined even more sharply . The overall decline seems to be due to the low survival rate of young birds , which may be caused by changes in agricultural practices . The intensive farming methods used in northern Europe mean it is less pasture and meadow habitat available , and the supply of grassland invertebrates needed for the nestlings to thrive is correspondingly reduced .

Starlings ' droppings can contain the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum , the cause of histoplasmosis in humans . At roosting sites this fungus can thrive in accumulated droppings . It are a number of other infectious diseases that can potentially be transmitted by common starlings to humans , although the potential for the birds to spread infections may have been exaggerated .

Because of the damage they do , it have been attempts to control the numbers of both native and introduced populations of common starlings . Within the natural breeding range , this may be affected by legislation . For example , in Spain , this is a species hunted commercially as a food item , and has a close season , whereas in France , it is classed as a pest , and the season in which it may be killed covers the greater part of the year . In the UK , the common starling may be killed at any time of year . This species is migratory , so birds involved in control measures may have come from a wide area and breeding populations may not be greatly affected . In Europe , the varying legislation and mobile populations mean that control attempts may have limited long @-@ term results . Non @-@ lethal techniques such as scaring with visual or auditory devices have only a temporary effect in any case .