Blackbird
- The blackbird is the most numerous breeding bird in the British Isles, with a population of around 6 million pairs.
- The highest breeding densities are to be found in small urban parks and residential areas.
- The European population has been estimated at between 38 and 55 million pairs.
- The only European country with no breeding blackbirds is Iceland; small numbers do occur there in the winter.
- The reason for its success is its adaptability, for it is equally at home in a town park or suburban garden as it is in a remote Welsh wood.
- Blackbirds are what is known as sexually dimorphic, which means that the plumage of the female is completely different from that of the male.
- The song of the blackbird is arguably the most beautiful and best-loved of any British bird, as well as being the most familiar.
- The first blackbird song of the year can usually be heard at the end of January or early February, though urban birds often start earlier.
- Studies have shown that the first birds to sing are cocks that were hatched the year before. The older birds do not start singing until well into March.
- Blackbirds typically like to sing after rain.
- The song period continues well into the summer, but it is unusual to hear sustained song much after the middle of July.
- The song Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, four-and-twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie was actually a coded message used to recruit crew members for the notorious 18th-century pirate Blackbeard.
- The majority of English blackbirds seldom move any distance from where they were hatched.
- British birds are joined in winter by large numbers of migrants from Europe, mainly Scandinavia, the Baltic States, Russia and Germany.
- The most common causes of death for ringed blackbirds are cats and cars.
- It takes a pair of blackbirds between 11 and 14 days to make a nest. Most of the work is done by the female.
- It is only the female that incubates the eggs, but the male helps feed his offspring.
- Scottish blackbirds are usually two weeks behind their English counterparts when it comes to nest building and egg laying.
- Blackbirds have been successfully introduced to south-eastern Australia and New Zealand.
- Attempts to establish blackbirds in New York and Oregon in the 19th-century both failed.
- The oldest ringed blackbird recovered was over 20 years old.
