Shall I compare thee to an invasive species?

The story that starlings were brought to the U.S. by a Shakespeare fanatic is a fascinating one...but it's almost certainly not true! The history behind the mistaken Shakespeare link is almost as fascinating as the Shakespeare story itself, though.

I spent years researching this with a student, and we published our findings in 2021. You can read that article here:

https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article/13/2/301/234995/Shakespeare-s-StarlingsLiterary-History-and-the

The New York Times followed up on our findings with their own exploration of the complicated place of starlings in the U.S., which is available here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/11/science/starlings-birds-shakespeare.html