Golden-breasted Starling
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[Photo] Golden-breasted Starling (Cosmopsarus regius) at the Milwaukee County Zoological Gardens, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Date October 6, 2006. Author Colin M.L. Burnett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cburnett)

Copyright (C) 2006 Colin M.L. Burnett Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

The Golden-breasted Starling, Cosmopsarus regius also known as Royal Starling is a medium-sized, up to 35cm long, passerine in the starling family. The adult has a metallic green head and upperback, bright golden yellow breast and belly, dark bill and legs, white iris and metallic violet blue on wings, back, neck and its long tail feathers. Both sexes are similar. The young is duller than adult.

The Golden-breasted Starling is distributed to the grassland, savanna and shrubland of northeast Africa, from Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and northern Tanzania.

The Golden-breasted Starling is a social animal, living in groups of three to twelve individuals. Its diet consists mainly of insects and termites. The Golden-breasted Starling molts once a year, after the breeding season.

The female usually lays between three to five pale green eggs with red speckles. It nests in tree holes. The nest is made from leaves, roots and other vegetation matters.

Widespread throughout its habitat range, the Golden-breasted Starling is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden-breasted_Starling

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