Blackbird
(Turdus merula)
Not all blackbirds are black. The male is, with a brilliant yellow beak, but the female is brown.
They are common, they live here all year round and they are active in the daytime (diurnal). They are among our best-loved birds, thanks partly to their beautiful night-time song.
The blackbird thrives in many habitats – urban, suburban, woodland, farmland, grassland. It eats a varied diet of insects, worms, caterpillars, berries and fruit and often forages in fallen leaves.
Fascinating fact:
Blackbirds listen for their dinner. They can hear worms moving just below the ground and hunt by cocking their heads, listening carefully.
Blackbirds build their nests near the ground from twigs, grasses and other plant material and produce two to three clutches of three to four eggs between March and June. Their predators are domestic cats, foxes and birds of prey.
Did medieval cooks really bake blackbirds in pies, four-and-twenty at a time? Well, there was a practice back then of placing live birds under a pie crust just before serving, which may be the origin of the familiar nursery rhyme.
In the song The Twelve Days of Christmas, the four “calling birds” were originally “colly birds”, or black birds.
The name blackbird was first recorded in the 15th century. Larger birds were known as “fowl” until the 18th century, so at the time the blackbird was the only common, small, black bird in the British Isles.
Did you know
Blackbirds generally live for about three years but the oldest ever recorded reached the ripe old age of 21.