[All pictures of garden wildlife on this page are thumbnails. Click on any thumbnail for a large format to be displayed.]

Blackbird (Turdus merula)

Clickhere for the bird's sound.

Only the male Blackbird, to the right, is really black. The female, to the left, is a kind of brown.

As you can guess from the name, the blackbird is black! At least the male is, as you can see on the right picture. The female is kind of brown as shown in the left picture. The Blackbird is the most common bird in Holland. It is estimated that there are some 2.8 million Blackbirds in my country nowadays! It means that the bird is now more common than the House Sparrow. It can be found in every park (even very small ones in the middle of the bigger cities), garden or forest, though it does not frequent larger meadows. It's a bird that a hundred years ago was considered to be very shy and living in woods exclusively. In cause of time it succesfully adopted to the lifestyle and the habitat of moderm humans. Blackbird is very fond of insects but it also attracted to fruit, for instance, apples which you can see in the picture below. It shows a male feeding its chicks although one of them got tired of waiting to get its feeding turn and already started to feed itself. All pictures except for the ones of the nest were taken in the garden of one of first house and garden. The other pictures were taken more recently, when the pair of blackbirds built their nest just beside the garage door. All activities there with people walking in and out and the special attention of the photographer couldn't interfere with their brooding activities...

Left: The Blackbird's eggs are green and beautifully freckled. The chicks themselves are less impressive and rather plain looking.

This bird belongs to the family of Thrushes (Turdiidae). It is very common in my garden and can be easily spotted in Holland all year round. The bird is 10" and weighs 95 grams. It lives in woodlands, parks and gardens mostly. It eats worms, insects, berries, fruit and seeds. Compared to the male, the female is brown-black and has a brown beak. Blackbirds start making their nests very early in spring, in some years as early as in February. It sometimes happens that by the end of March you see young blackbirds hopping around. If it turns out to be to cold after all, the Blackbird simply starts a new nest. Having chicks very early has a few strong points. Other birds have no chicks yet, which means that there is less competition for food. It also has an advantage that the predator birds will be still less hungry for Blackbirds' eggs of young chicks. Just like most Thrushes the Blackbird produces four or five eggs. It breeds them for two weeks. It takes the chicks only 13 days to be able to leave the nest.