Starling feathers are used on many traditional English soft hackle patterns; Starling and Purple comes immediately to mind. The starling feather is small enough to work well in the smaller sizes and has a nice metallic greenish sheen. John Smeraglio ties a nice Baetis soft hackle emerger with a trailing shuck of Z-lon, an abdomen of one strand of black and one of peacock Krystalflash twisted into a rope, a thorax of dark olive dubbing and a starling hackle.