2 posts tagged “blackbird behavior”

Well it just gets curiouser and curiouser. The female blackbird returned to the nest this morning. She diddn't stay, just plumped up the bedding and went off a few minutes later.

The thing is, if she had been violently attacked on the nest by other birds or rodents (the location is absolutely squirrel proof though) I am certain she would have abandoned this nest and possibly even the territory - this has already happened to an unlucky pair of blackbirds who got raided by squirrels in next doors garden. They left and never came back. So when I saw that all the eggs were gone, I assumed the worst, that we would never see her again. Wether the nest was attacked or robbed stealthily while she was on a rest break, I feel sure that a robbed nest would be too much for any bird.

So was it robbery, or were the eggs perhaps bad and removed by the parent birds themselves? Did the eggs hatch, producing sickly chicks that died soon after? And will the female return to lay yet more eggs?

It's Sunday, and the female has been incubating her eggs for a full week now. It seems to me to be an extraordinarily tedious job, and I'm wondering if she feels the same. A few days ago I noticed something new; the female, sitting on her nest, making the same plaintive "seep, seep" call that I had attributed to the male bird a few days before. She's obviously communicating something to her mate - but what? I crane my head to to see if there is something out there that could be bothering her. Nothing. Or at least, nothing that I can imagine would bother her - who knows what she's making of the world right now anyway? Then I get another idea, a more credible one. Is she calling her mate because she needs a rest from sitting, needs to stretch her wings, take in a worm or two, scratch her itchy belly? Could she actually be bored? At any rate the male doesn't come. I listen to her seeping pathetically for a good hour before he turns up, cautiously approaching the windowbox from it's most overgrown side. And she's off! As soon as he is in her field of vision she launches herself into the air without a backward glance, leaving him in charge. He perches awkwardly on the side of the nest, bows low to the eggs inside and peers at them uncertainly. He seems quite at a loss. He is handsome; I drink in his beauty as he straightens up and spots me. He is far more nervous than the female - he hasn't spent long hours in my company as she has, and I know I make him feel uncomfortable. He stands as stiffly as a sentry; I am reminded of the guards who stand along Whitehall in their bearskin hats and scarlet tunics, flamboyant, still as statues and utterly ridiculous. It becomes clear that he does not share his mates infinite patience and after only five minutes he flies up to perch on next doors roof, becomes unhappy with the view from up there, and drops back to the nest. After some impatient shuffling about on the nests rim, he's had enough and flies away, leaving the eggs unguarded. Luckily the female returns not long after, settles herself comfortably back onto the eggs and sits dreaming, her short rest break over.