Black Collared Starling BB Homecoming

Write some light-hearted life themes over the weekend.

A few days ago, while running early in the morning, I encountered a lost black-collared starling chick on the cycling track. Black-collared starlings are no strangers to people who often linger on the seaside of Hong Kong. They are easy to see in Tolo Harbour, Shing Mun River and Victoria Harbour. Their outer appearance is very special, like a gentleman wearing a "kicking dead rabbit", because there is a black feather on the neck, just like the collar of a dress. The gentleman loves beauty, and the corners of his eyes are actually painted with a touch of yellow eyeshadow.

For a few years, I used my bicycle to go to work via the cycle track of the Tolo Harbour Highway. I was accompanied by black-collared starlings every day. This morning, I saw it jumping alone on the cycle track. It's a bit clumsy, after all, it hasn't learned to fly. There are people coming and going on the road, and the bicycles are going too fast, which is too dangerous for this little bird.

I feel obliged to help this kid. Disregarding the training goal of running, I stopped the Runkeeper's timer and planned to send the bird back to the grass. Its location is separated from the grass by a row of one-meter-high concrete planters. The planters are built along the entire cycle path, and birds cannot jump over them. I urged it to jump towards the fracture of the flower trough 50 meters away like a sheep behind it. Although it didn't know how to fly, it was very sensitive. When I felt that a behemoth of unknown origin was chasing it, I hurried forward.

When I came to the break, I found two adult starlings waiting on the fence outside the grass for a long time. I guess when I was chasing the birds, they kept their eyes on the position of the bat, and followed closely along the top of the iron net. They were probably worried that I would hurt the chicks, and they kept chirping, not knowing if they were giving directions to the chicks or warning me.

The chicks also seem to hear their parents calling. It jumped towards the grass, passed under the iron net, and disappeared into the bushes. Seeing this, its parents immediately flew down from the top of the iron net, as if they were in a hurry to comfort their precious child.

I took the precious two-second short video below, and the anxious chirping of the parents can be heard. I hope they don't misunderstand my kindness, in fact, I think their children are nephews.