Mozart's Starling
by Haupt, Lyanda Lynn







Prelude A Plague of Inspiration3(12)
One The Starling of Seattle
15(11)
Two Mozart and the Musical Thief
26(20)
Three Uninvited Guest, Unexpected Wonder
46(30)
Four What the Starling Said
76(21)
Five The Starling of Vienna
97(32)
Six How the Starling Knew
129(18)
Seven Chomsky's Starling
147(30)
Interlude The Heart of Time for Birds and Mozart
172(5)
Eight Birds of a Feather
177(36)
Nine Mozart's Ear and the Music of the Spheres
213(24)
Finale Three Funerals and a Flight of Fancy237(27)
Coda264(1)
Acknowledgments265(2)
Bibliography267


Explores the unlikely bond between the famous Austrian composer and his pet starling, providing an unexpected window into human-animal friendships, music, and the nature of creative inspiration.





Lyanda Lynn Haupt has created and directed educational programs for Seattle Audubon, worked in raptor rehabilitation in Vermont, and as a seabird researcher for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the remote tropical Pacific. She is the author of Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent and Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds (winner of the 2002 Washington State Book Award).

Her writing has appeared in Image, Open Spaces, Wild Earth, Conservation Biology Journal, Birdwatcher's Digest, and the Prairie Naturalist. She lives in West Seattle with her husband and daughter.





*Starred Review* 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. Copyright 2017 Booklist Reviews.





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, c onsolation, 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 shir t s." Linguists, audiologists, ornithologists, music historians, and Mozart's many biographers contribute to this lively investigation of a small wild bird. Copyright Kirkus 2017 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.






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