African Blackbird
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This consists of a short run, the head first being raised and then bowed with the tail dipped simultaneously. If a fight between male blackbirds does occur, it is usually short and the intruder is soon chased away. The female blackbird is also aggressive in the spring when it competes with other females for a good nesting territory, and although fights are less frequent, they tend to be more violent. The bill's appearance is important in the interactions of the common blackbird.
The territory-holding male responds more aggressively towards models with orange bills than to those with yellow bills, and reacts least to the brown bill colour typical of the first-year male.
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The female is, however, relatively indifferent to bill colour, but responds instead to shinier bills. As long as winter food is available, both the male and female will remain in the territory throughout the year, although occupying different areas. Migrants are more gregarious, travelling in small flocks and feeding in loose groups in the wintering grounds. The flight of migrating birds comprises bursts of rapid wing beats interspersed with level or diving movement, and differs from both the normal fast agile flight of this species and the more dipping action of larger thrushes.
The male common blackbird attracts the female with a courtship display which consists of oblique runs combined with head-bowing movements, an open beak, and a "strangled" low song. The female remains motionless until she raises her head and tail to permit copulation. The cup-shaped nest is made with grasses, leaves and other vegetation, bound together with mud. It is built by the female alone.
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She lays three to five usually four bluish-green eggs marked with reddish-brown blotches, [21] heaviest at the larger end; [22] the eggs of nominate T. Fledging takes another 10—19 average If the female starts another nest, the male alone will feed the fledged young. A common blackbird has an average life expectancy of 2. In its native Northern Hemisphere range, the first-year male common blackbird of the nominate race may start singing as early as late January in fine weather in order to establish a territory, followed in late March by the adult male.
The male's song is a varied and melodious low-pitched fluted warble, given from trees, rooftops or other elevated perches mainly in the period from March to June, sometimes into the beginning of July. It has a number of other calls, including an aggressive seee , a pook-pook-pook alarm for terrestrial predators like cats, and various chink and chook, chook vocalisations. The territorial male invariably gives chink-chink calls in the evening in an usually unsuccessful attempt to deter other blackbirds from roosting in its territory overnight.
At least two subspecies, T. The common blackbird is omnivorous , eating a wide range of insects , earthworms , seeds and berries. It feeds mainly on the ground, running and hopping with a start-stop-start progress. It pulls earthworms from the soil, usually finding them by sight, but sometimes by hearing, and roots through leaf litter for other invertebrates.
Small amphibians and lizards are occasionally hunted. This species will also perch in bushes to take berries and collect caterpillars and other active insects. The nature of the fruit taken depends on what is locally available, and frequently includes exotics in gardens. Near human habitation the main predator of the common blackbird is the domestic cat, with newly fledged young especially vulnerable. Foxes and predatory birds, such as the sparrowhawk and other accipiters , also take this species when the opportunity arises.
This species is occasionally a host of parasitic cuckoos , such as the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus , but this is minimal because the common blackbird recognizes the adult of the parasitic species and its non-mimetic eggs. As with other passerine birds, parasites are common. Common blackbirds spend much of their time looking for food on the ground where they can become infested with ticks, which are external parasites that most commonly attach to the head of a blackbird.
The common blackbird is one of a number of species which has unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. One hemisphere of the brain is effectively asleep, while a low-voltage EEG , characteristic of wakefulness, is present in the other. The benefit of this is that the bird can rest in areas of high predation or during long migratory flights, but still retain a degree of alertness.
The common blackbird was introduced to Australia by a bird dealer visiting Melbourne in early , [47] and its range has expanded from its initial foothold in Melbourne and Adelaide to include all of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands.
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The introduced common blackbird is, together with the native silvereye Zosterops lateralis , the most widely distributed avian seed disperser in New Zealand. These communities provide fruit more suited to non-endemic native birds and naturalised birds, than to endemic birds. The common blackbird was seen as a sacred though destructive bird in Classical Greek folklore, and was said to die if it consumed pomegranate.
Sing a song of sixpence , A pocket full of rye; Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie! When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,. Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king? The common blackbird's melodious, distinctive song is mentioned in the poem Adlestrop by Edward Thomas ;. Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. In the English Christmas carol The Twelve Days of Christmas , the line commonly sung today as "four calling birds" is believed to have originally been written in the 18th century as "four colly birds", an archaism meaning "black as coal" that was a popular English nickname for the common blackbird.
The common blackbird, unlike many black creatures, is not normally seen as a symbol of bad luck, [53] but R. Thomas wrote that there is "a suggestion of dark Places about it", [57] and it symbolised resignation in the 17th century tragic play The Duchess of Malfi ; [58] an alternate connotation is vigilance, the bird's clear cry warning of danger. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A thrush native to Europe, Asia and North Africa. Retrieved 13 January Complete Birds of North America.
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Introduced Birds of the World. Agricultural Protection Board of Western Australia.
Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Editio decima, reformata in Latin.
The BLSA list includes additional entries as species which Clements considers subspecies; some of them are noted. The helmetshrikes are similar in build to the shrikes, but tend to be colorful species with distinctive crests or other head ornaments, such as wattles, from which they get their name. Check-list of North American Birds Seventh ed. The Asian subspecies, the relatively large intermedius also differs in structure and voice, and may represent a distinct species. Frequently, the bill is brightly colored.
Thrushes Helm Identification Guides. Christopher Helm Publishers Ltd. Oxford Book of British Bird Names. Birds of Africa south of the Sahara. Struik Publishers, Cape Town. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Retrieved 18 February The Birds of the Western Palearctic concise edition 2 volumes.
Common Blackbird Turdus merula. Tibetan Blackbird Turdus maximus. The Birds of the High Andes. Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen. Retrieved 29 September A Study of Blackbirds.
British Museum Natural History. The Observer's Book of Birds' Eggs. Check-list of North American Birds". Check-list of North American Birds Seventh ed. Archived from the original on December 11, Retrieved 14 December Furthermore, different approaches to ornithological nomenclature have led to concurrent systems of classification see Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy. Differences in common and scientific names between the Clements taxonomy and that of the ABC are frequent but are seldom noted here.
This list contains species. Fourteen entire families containing species are endemic to Africa, and all of the African members of seven other families are as well. These families are usually noted with text.
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Individual endemic species found in a single country are tagged E-Country ; the rest of the endemics are tagged E or noted in text. Other species, not tagged here, are found only on the continent and Madagascar. The 17 countries which have endemics and the number in each are listed below.
The ABC classifies species as vagrants; they are tagged V. Some of them occur fairly frequently but are far outside their normal ranges; several have only a single record. The ABC notes that six of the species on the list were introduced to the continent.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the eponymous ornithological handbook, see The Birds of Africa.