With a song like the light through slow-poured honey, the coal-black male blackbird, with its yellow-gold bill and matching ring around a big, dark eye, is familiar almost everywhere. Along with the subtly dappled, earth-brown female, blackbirds live alongside us, sharing spaces we have created or appropriated; urban, suburban or rural. Appearing almost tame, yet quick to scold with indignant, loud alarm, they accept us as just another animal: reminding (sometimes reprimanding) us, that’s what we are.
Our most neighbourly and recognisable member of the thrush family is never far away. Gardens can provide excellent habitats with food, shelter and nesting places in the form of shrubs, hedges and climbers. Close territories are defended by gatepost posturing, with wing and tail flicks.
