Blackbirds

Is it my imagination, or are there more blackbirds about this year? Driving along a lane not too far from here the other day, I seemed to encounter blackbirds at very regular intervals all the way along, so clearly those hedgerows (good thick ones, granted) held quite a density of population.

Blackbirds have been very busily present in our garden, with some good arguments between competing males, and some fine singing too - this is about the only song to make it past the sound barrier of our double glazing as the dawn chorus begins!

Yesterday a male blackbird was feeding his more or less full-grown young bird below our feeders. The spotty breasted youngster was the size of his or her dad, and very noisy in demanding attention, but still with a very distinctly orange gape. This is obviously a successful early first brood, and a sign that this has been a remarkable spring, with some fine weather and early growth following our drippingly went but nonetheless very mild winter.

We had a song thrush singing in the trees behind us late yesterday afternoon, too. While this was not such a rich and velvety voice as the blackbirds, the song contained some remarkable flourishes and was full of invention, with each distinctive phrase repeated: quite delightful.