Mozart's Starling

March 1, 2017
A bird lover discovers the joys of living with a starling.One day, glimpsing a gathering of starlings outside her window, bird-watcher and naturalist Haupt (The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild, 2013, etc.) happened to recall that Mozart kept a pet starling, a choice that seemed to her extraordinary. Starlings, she reveals, are among the most "reviled" birds: invasive, aggressive, omnivorous, and destructive. Some call them "rats with wings" and would happily obliterate the entire species. They oust other birds from their nests, voraciously eat food crops and feed from cattle and swine troughs, and cause $800 million in agricultural damage each year. Orphan starlings are killed if brought to animal shelters, which is how Haupt happened to raise one herself. Weaving together cheerful memoir, natural history, and biography, the author celebrates her "insatiably social" pet starling, Carmen; investigates Mozart's experience with his avian "companion, distraction, consolation, and muse"; and offers intriguing details about starling behavior. Mozart discovered his starling in a bird shop in Vienna, when it apparently was able to sing a motif from one of his concertos. Fascinated by this bit of lore, Haupt has discovered that starlings, rare among birds, are able to mimic sounds. Carmen, for example, has a repertoire of 15 phrases, including "Hi, honey," and "C'mere, honey!" Haupt is completely entranced by her feathered friend, allowing her to fly freely around the house, perch on her shoulder or in her hair, and scamper across her fingers as she writes at the computer, making changes to documents and emails that Haupt thinks is evidence of her intelligence. Of course, the bird poses some problems: she swallows things that could kill her (a rubber band, a garbanzo bean), and she poops constantly, everywhere. Like all birds that fly a lot, starlings need to eliminate waste that can weigh them down. Haupt provides visitors with "poop shirts." Linguists, audiologists, ornithologists, music historians, and Mozart's many biographers contribute to this lively investigation of a small wild bird.

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April 1, 2017

Haupt (The Urban Bestiary) intertwines the story of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's starling with her own story of living with one of America's most hated birds, the starling. Mozart discovered his bird in a 1780s Vienna pet shop singing a tune from his latest concerto; when it died, he arranged an elaborate ceremony complete with dramatic elegy. This book is part history (the origin of North American starlings), part natural history (the habits and psychology of starlings, from both personal experience and the scientific literature), and part whimsical imagining of how the bird might have lived within the busy Mozart household. Along the way, Haupt discusses the changing view of pets in Mozart's time, the nature of language (the starling as a challenge to linguist Noam Chomsky), Mozart's A Musical Joke as starling-inspired, a consideration of whether birdsong is music, and the meaning of three funerals: that of Mozart's father, his starling, and the composer himself. VERDICT This entertaining, well-written, and thought-provoking examination is highly recommended to pet owners (especially bird enthusiasts), ornithologists, and lovers of classical music, especially Mozart's works.--Bruce R. Schueneman, Texas A&M Univ. Lib., Kingsville

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2017
Starlings are probably the most reviled bird in North America. Introduced from England in the 1890s, they have since spread across the continent, displacing native birds and causing millions of dollars in crop damage every year. But when naturalist and author Haupt (Urban Bestiary, 2013) remembered that Mozart kept a pet starling, a not-uncommon practice in eighteenth-century Europe, she embarked on a journey to follow the tale of the famed composer and his pet bird. Realizing that to fully understand how Mozart could be influenced by his starling, as recent examinations of his music have shown, she needed to live with a starling herself. Thus begin the parallel tales of Carmen (Latin for song ) and Mozart's starling, who Haupt refers to as Star. Although the author hand-reared Carmen, Mozart purchased the adult Star from a bird dealer after hearing the bird sing the motif from his Piano Concerto no. 17 in G. This hard-to-put-down, charming blend of science, biography, and memoir illuminating the little-known story of the composer and his beloved bird is enlivened by the immediacy of Haupt's tales of Carmen, and brimming with starling information, travelogues, and historical details about Mozart's Vienna.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)