Common Blackbird

Identification

A large ground-feeding thrush of 24–27 cm, the Common Blackbird is strongly dimorphic. The male is matt black with a bright yellow-orange bill and a yellow eye-ring framing a dark eye; the female is dark brown with a paler, faintly streaked throat and breast and a duller brownish bill. In flight the wings look broad and rounded and the tail long, and a low chattering alarm call usually gives the bird away before it breaks from cover.

Blackbirds feed mostly on the ground, hopping forward a few paces, stopping to stare, then flicking leaf litter aside or pulling at a worm until it comes free. Fruit dominates in autumn and winter — fallen apples and berries especially — and a single laden tree can hold a dozen squabbling birds. Breeding starts in March in mild years, with a neat cup of grass and mud tucked into ivy, hedge or shrub and up to three broods, and the song, a relaxed fluting series of phrases each repeated two or three times, is the backbone of the spring dawn chorus, delivered from a rooftop or treetop perch.

Parks, gardens, allotments and even city squares with a strip of grass hold birds year-round. Look on the lawn after rain, or simply listen at first light from March to June and again on mild autumn mornings. Where blackbirds are tame, sitting still with a few sultanas or chopped apple on the ground brings them in within minutes.