Blackbird

Watching a rather bedraggled Blackbird popping around on the lawn this morning, put me in mind of one which we saw last year at the Eden Project in Cornwall. While our Blackbird (Turdus merula) was searching for worms, grubs and almost anything edible, the chap in Cornwall was, thankfully easier to photograph sitting still on a post.

Members of the Thrush family, they have a wonderful singing voice and often incorporate parts of other birds' songs in their own repertoire. One particularly amusing bird near our home was last year to be heard mimicking (Rather well) a reversing lorry!

One of Britain's most common bird species, their numbers may reach about 15 million individuals during the winter, swelled by a European influx especially in harsh weather. It is thought about 5 million pairs breed in the UK. Here is a particularly good recording of a Blackbird singing, from YouTube. (Try to ignore the person in the background blowing her nose half way through!)