The Blackbird is an incredibly familiar bird – have you seen one today? Or heard one?
When I was doing fieldwork for my PhD I spent a lot of autumn and winter evenings, at dusk, hanging around in places. The characteristic sound of that time was the ‘Chink!!’ of Blackbirds as the light faded.
In recent weeks, partly because I am putting more effort than usual into spending time in the garden in order to see what species I might see (and hear) I have been alert to the Blackbirds soon after dawn making their ‘Chink!!’ noises.
Why are Blackbirds so shouty, out of the breeding season, at dusk and dawn? I really don’t know.
At this time of year, there are Blackbirds from eastern Europe arriving in the UK, and I sometimes wonder whether the arrival of these migrants stirs everything up and disrupts the staid lives of resident birds. I doubt that is much of the answer.
Shouting lots must have some costs (energetic, drawing attention to yourself and perhaps reducing foraging time) and so for all that shoutiness to have evolved it must have some functional significance (at least that would be my starting point) and I’d like to understand it better.
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Hi Mark
I briefly checked one of my favourite books of all time “a study of Blackbirds” by DW Snow. He discusses this in the chapter on song and calls (Chapter 5). Key sentences as follows:
“Chinking is most intense in places where good roosting sites attract strange birds from outside the area. The resident birds, chinking persistently, chase and chivvy the intruders, who approach silently and furtively; but eventually they desist and allow the visitors to settle down in their roosts. In territories where roosting sites are few and no visiting birds come, the territory-holders nevertheless usually take up a conspicuous perch and chink for some minutes before going to roost. This evening chinking thus seems to serve as an assertion of ownership at a time when territories are habitually invaded by strange birds.”
Wonderful book which I will now spend the rest of the evening reading!
I have love hate (actually love) relationship with Blackbird. The reason? When my collie was a pup we had a pair in our garden, anyway once a cat was on the prowl and the blackbirds started to alarm. Ever since my collie has taken the blackbird alarm as there are cats in the area and goes mad woofing running about and looking for the cat. It can get quite embarrassing when you’re out
It could well be migrants. In southern France in the garden Robins arrive mid October – they don’t breed – and immediately set about beating up the resident Black Redstarts.
One function of bird alarm call choruses may be to make sure that internal biological clocks are accurately set with respect to the progression of the seasons. The timing of dusk/dawn alarm call onset is closely linked to light intensity in many species. E.g. Blackbird, Robin, S. Thrush and Wren all have particular light intensities for triggering their dawn songs. After the end of their song/breeding seasons they substitute their singing responses with calling responses. Timewise, this is all done quite seamlessly. Hence the progress of the average audible response to dawn light for many birds can be plotted throughout the year.
That said, the whole subject of the seasonality of bird alarm calls appears to have been rather neglected by ornithologists. I once asked a senior BTO scientist if the long term monitoring of the dawn chorus throughout the year could have any scientific value. His curt reply was that such an idea was pointless. But how did he know to be so sure? Alas, he wasn’t of a mind to discuss.
After 20 years of doing just such a longitudinal study, the conclusion is that it is probably not pointless. But on the other hand it needs a scientist to be the judge of that.
This morning on my way to work, I heard a Blackbird singing! I have heard them here in the South-West in January before, but never in November. I think it was just so thankful for a glorious sunny dry morning after days and days of heavy rain. Anyway, put a big smile on my face.
That’s interesting Sophia. An autumn Blackbird in full song seems to be a very rare event. Or, does it tend to be under-reported?
In his Observations In Natural History (1846), Leonard Jenyns states that in twenty years of listening he never heard a Blackbird sing in the autumn. Yet Gilbert White notes in his song chart of 1769 that the Blackbird ‘re-assumes [its song] in autumn’.
No resumption to report here in West Sussex over the last four or five decades. But, that first Blackbird song in January or February is all the sweeter for that length of silence since the previous July.
Well, perhaps it isn’t such a rare occurrence here in Plymouth Murray. On hearing his song, I excitedly told a colleague of my encounter this morning and he calmly told me that he has had a blackbird singing in his garden hedge recently. I think this needs investigation…. Could they be this years young males having a practice? Or migrants announcing their arrival? I am curious and intrigued. Yes I keep a check on the first blackbird song of the year and in recent years it has been the first or second week of January. A joyful and profound moment indeed!
Thanks. That’s great about the other Blackbird song.
Agree, such behaviour may not be so rare. And given that your colleague was ‘calm’ about his observation, perhaps he’s heard Blackbird autumn song in other years? I hope he keeps a record like you do.
Yes, it could be immature males practicing to sing – I think I read that somewhere. But surely you or he would have noticed the lesser quality of the song? (Must get the ref. for that – ? Snow ). No, I’ve not come across the migrant suggestion but I’m very behind on any current literature.
Thanks to Robert Sheldon’s nice comment about Snow’s book, I found the ref. straight away. Snow says that on fine Oct/Nov days short bursts of song can be heard occasionally – mainly from young males. This song is loud, typically phrased, and delivered from a high perch, and seems to be to be a premature development of the territorial song …
But it remains a puzzle as to why this autumn behaviour is occasional in some localities but apparently absent in others.
As you say, it needs investigating.
And now my parents too! They live in SE Cornwall and on relaying this story this evening, my mum remarked that she heard and saw a blackbird singing on a beautiful morning last week. There’s something in the water here in the SW! Yes the song I heard was a shorter version of the typical spring song, but clear with a trill at the end. This is definitely something I will look into and try to gather information on. I have a shouty blackbird too that flies along the long hedge behind my home. There is a small group of males and females that can often be seen together. A whirring of a motor caught my attention early this morning and I looked out onto the field the other side of the long hedge to see a local council mower cutting the grasses and flowers to stubble. One by one loads of small and larger birds in the hedge hopped onto higher branches and watched silently with me at what was happening. I wonder if they felt the same dismay and sadness as I did.
Brilliant and heartwarming set of comments/discourse; well sparked off Mark! I have always found the dusk ‘chink’ has a strange bittersweet melancholy to it. On a more utilitarian level I find it tends to mark a defined point in the progression of dusk and the failing of the light – hence of value in determining the precise moment when one should switch on bat detectors, intensify the focus on a suspected bat roost exit or cut out the stupid fidgeting while waiting for badgers to emerge.
Well this blackbird chirps & calls every morning also evening, I thought it was calling to get its brood to bed!
I really don’t know and would like to know why.