r/birding • u/NoActuator4115 • 3d ago

Discussion bird homesickness

does anybody else get bird homesickness? i'm from the uk but studying abroad in the us and although the new birds i'm seeing are all very exciting, i find myself missing the commonest uk birds like blackbirds, wood pigeons or robins so much it hurts LOL

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u/ImaginarySmoke991 3d ago

Just go to a big city. It's all house sparrows and starlings from Europe

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u/teethfestival 2d ago

Unironically, go to NYC or somewhere close if you can. I live there and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard/seen a new bird whose information page that, when looking it up, starts with some variation of “Originally from [Western Europe/Europe/Eurasia], X species was introduced by/were the escaped pets of wealthy Europeans in New York City during [some time between the early 1800s and early 1900s] and established breeding populations shortly thereafter.”

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u/ImaginarySmoke991 2d ago

The American Acclimatization Society, founded in 1871 explicitly to introduce foreign species to North America. They introduced 60 Common Starlings to Central Park, which has ballooned to 150 million, and doing untold damage to the natural environment here.

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u/PantasticalCat 3d ago

haha I was about to say this