The ongoing struggle between nature and man

Graphite on Paper – aprox 14 x 16   © Lauren Bellon – All Rights Reserved

Both man and bird suffer from their interactions. The European Starling was brought over to American soil  “in 1890, a drug manufacturer, who wanted every bird found in Shakespeare to live in America released 60 starlings in Central Park. After spending a few years nesting modestly under the eaves of the American Museum of Natural History, they went from a poetic fancy to a menacing majority; there are now upward of 200 million birds across North America, where they thrive at the expense of other cavity nesters like bluebirds and woodpeckers, eat an abundance of grain — as well as harmful insects — and occasionally bring down airplanes”¹

¹New York Times