Starling Dodd is a fell in the western part of the English Lake District, located between the valleys of Ennerdale and Buttermere, on the ridge between Great Borne to its west and Red Pike to its east.

The western ridge of Red Pike swings down, away from the craggy Buttermere front of Ling Cove, and then rises to the subsidiary top of Little Dodd, 1,935 ft (590 m).

Gentle slopes fall westward along the watershed, interrupted only by the slight rise of Gale Fell, 1,699 ft (518 m), a trivial summit listed only by Birkett.

The southern flanks of Starling Dodd are heavily wooded below 1,000 ft (300 m), part of the extensive conifer plantations of the Ennerdale Forest.

North of the summit dome, Starling Dodd levels into a wide plateau before disappearing over a steep rim of minor crags.

At the base of this fall is the tenuous topographical connection to Mellbreak, a low watershed dividing Starling Dodd's northern drainage into widely differing catchments.

[3] The summit of Starling Dodd is formed by rocks of the Buttermere Formation, an olistostrome of disrupted, sheared and folded mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.