The White-shouldered Starling is marked by white shoulders and gathers in open areas with scattered trees.
Its white shoulders stand out, and plumage differs by age and sex.
White-shouldered Starlings breeding in Hong Kong were once thought to stay year-round. Caroline Dingle and colleagues fitted geolocators to 20 birds and recaptured 12 the following year. They recovered eight sets of usable location records and used them to map winter movements.
Seven of those eight birds spent winter in southern Vietnam, southern Laos or Cambodia. Their mid-winter locations averaged about 1,470 kilometres from Hong Kong, with the farthest around 2,013 kilometres away. The remaining bird moved to southern China. Feather isotope results also suggested that some individuals may use different wintering areas in different years, showing more than one migration pattern in the Hong Kong breeding population.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Of eight Hong Kong birds with recovered geolocator data, seven wintered in Southeast Asia and one in southern China. Feather isotope results also suggested that individuals may change wintering areas between years.