European Starlings are pretty good mimics, and this short video proves that they do a decent job of imitating coyotes. The location was an abandoned house with a ravens' nest above the back porch, barn owls roosting in the attic, and coyotes denning in the crawl space that was also occupied by mountain cottontails.
European Starlings seemed to occupy every hole in the wooden walls, and were fond of perching on the ravens' nest. They were already nesting in February, and they photobombed most of the clips that we recorded -- until a red-tailed hawk perched on the camera and tilted it downwards. When the ravens started to nest, the camera was out of commission.
The yodeling starling was the silver lining in this story. There was at least one songster, and maybe more. We couldn't see it or them in the video clips because they performed on the camera or right next to it -- out of view. Thus, the recordings were pretty good, but the songsters performed off-stage.
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