Blackbird

Size. - The Blackbird, being so well known and easily recognizable, is taken as a standard for comparison. Length 10,5 inches.

Colour Male - entirely black, with yellow bill and dark-brown feet.

Color Female - dark brownish-black above. Throat and chest reddish-brown, mottled with dusky. Lower breast and under parts blackish. Bill brown.

Note. - The Blackbird is one of our best songsters, commencing early in the spring - as a rule, I think, a little later than the Song Thrush. Its song consists of a succession of rich mellow fluty notes, and is said to be the only bird's song which really forms a musical strain.

As one walks down a country lane, or follows a footpath over the fields by the side of a hedgerow, sooner or later a Blackbird is sure to fly out with a rush and a noisy cry, which sends the rabbits hurrying into their holes, and causes every wild creature within hearing distance to be on the alert for danger. When the birds are going to roost in the evenings among the thick evergreens, the Blackbird is again much in evidence, flying about from bush to bush, uttering its loud alarmnote and 'tick, tick, tick' in such a vehement and important manner that one would think that particular Blackbird was in charge of all the rest of the birds in the garden, and was responsible for seeing them all safely to bed.

Distinguishing Feature. - You can hardly mistake the Blackbird itself, though many people living in the country are unable to say for certain whether a bird heard singing is a Song Thrush or a Blackbird. A Song Thrush in full song repeats one note several times, then another, and so on, perhaps using eight or nine variations. `Pretty deak, pretty deak, pretty deak' is a favourite note, sometimes sounding like 'Wet week, wet week, wet week.'

A Blackbird, on the other hand, actually whistles a stave of melody which it is possible to express in terms of music.

Nest. - Dried grass, made firm and solid with mud, and a coating of mud inside, on which is placed a final lining of fine dried grass. In a hedge, often at the bottom on the bank, sometimes on a beam in a shed, and I have known one in the ground among - a few short nettles out in an open field.

Eggs. - Greenish-blue, with spots of reddish-brown, the spots on some eggs very small, and scattered all over the egg, on others larger and collected chiefly at the larger end.

Haunts. - Found almost everywhere in the country.