Common Myna Life History

Habitat

Common Mynas typically live around people—in villages, towns, cities, and cultivated areas. In their native range of Central, South, and Southeast Asia, they also reside in grasslands, desert oases, and mountain foothills. Introduced birds on oceanic islands inhabit mangroves and open areas such as airstrips in addition to human habitations.

Food

Common Mynas are true omnivores, eating fruits, grains, insects, food scraps, garbage, bird eggs, small animals, and nectar. They feed on many different fruits (including fig, apple, pear, strawberry, grape, guava, mango, and papaya) and crops (such as wheat, rice, peanut, lentil, and corn). They also eat a variety of insects—especially beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, moths, butterflies, caterpillars, flies, maggots, bees, wasps, ants, and termites—including some agricultural pests. Common Mynas feed largely on the ground, probing the soil with their bill and hopping sideways in search of insects. They also forage in trees and bushes, mainly to feed on fruit and nectar. Mynas are often economically important pollinators or seed dispersers, but they also cause damage to commercial fruit and other crops.

Nesting

Nest Placement

Both sexes construct the nest, which they place in any spot that will hold a large pile of leaves and twigs. Nest sites include natural cavities, nest boxes, trees, crevices in buildings, utility poles, and pipes.

Nest Description

A messy cup that can include grasses, wood shavings, feathers, cellophane, plastic, leaves, twigs, roots, tinfoil, rags, cow hair, and sheep wool.

Nesting Facts

Behavior

Common Mynas are bold, conspicuous birds. They enter houses in search of food scraps and raid seabird colonies to pillage eggs. During the breeding season, pairs may come to physical blows as they compete for—or evict each other from—highly prized nest sites. They also compete for nest sites with other species, including possibly the endangered Mauritius Parakeet and Mauritius Kestrel. Common Mynas frequently occur alone or in pairs during the daytime, but in the evening, they gather in large, noisy roosts that can range from scores to thousands of birds.

Common Mynas are socially monogamous, with pairs staying together in the nonbreeding season and possibly bonding for life. Both sexes select the nest site, build the nest, incubate eggs, and feed the young, which fledge after 3–4 weeks. Adults continue to feed and protect young birds for several weeks after they fledge.

Conservation

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists Common Myna’s conservation status as Least Concern. While there is no population estimate for this species, it has an extremely large range and its population trend appears to be increasing. Outside of its native range, Common Myna can be highly invasive, resulting in nuisance effects for humans and negative impacts on native bird populations. In the Hawaiian Islands, this species has been implicated in native forest-bird declines and as a serious predator of seabird eggs.

Credits

BirdLife International. 2017. Acridotheres tristis (amended version of 2016 assessment). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2017: e.T22710921A111063735. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-1.RLTS.T22710921A111063735.en.

Feare, C. and A. Craig. (1999). Starlings and mynas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.

Grimmett, R., C. Inskipp, and T. Inskipp (2011). A Guide to the Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Second edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA.

Kannan, R. and D. A. James (2020). Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.commyn.01

Rasmussen, P. C., and J. C. Anderton (2012). Birds of South Asia: the Ripley Guide. Volumes 1 and 2. 2nd edition. National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C., USA.

Sibley, D. A. (2014). The Sibley Guide to Birds, second edition. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, USA.

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