3 posts tagged “blackbird”

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.

A fourth egg was laid today

The female was on the nest by 10.30 today - she has a proper routine it appears! She spent a lot of time on the nest, although still not as much as she did once her clutch of eggs was completed last time, so we'll see if she has any surprises for us tomorrow. She was served lunch again by the male - this time a beak full of worms, and this time he seems to have got the hang of things. There was a fair bit of drama today, and I got to see how the pair interact when danger is near. Often I heared the thin "seep" call coming from the male, who was perched close by but somewhere hidden, as he warned his mate to sit tight. At least, that's what I infer from it, as whenever he made that call she would shuffle down further into the nest in an attempt to become invisible. What was he seeing? I would go out into the garden to try and see the potential threat, but usually with the "seep" call, I could not. Mid afternoon there was a commotion of a different magnitude when a magpie attempted to raid a neighbouring blackbird nest in a tree three gardens down from ours. All the blackbirds of the neighbourhood had come out in support of their neighbour and were frantically mobbing the magpie, screeching, pecking and giving the familiar rattling, cackling alarm call that sounds to me as if they are shreiking "OMG OMG OMFG!!!!!!" Our male was presumably taking part, and the female was going through agonies of curiosity. Every so often she would creep very slightly forward in the nest in an attempt to see what was going on, but the screeches of her mate would see her sliding back into the nest and hiding in it as far down as she could go. Obviously he couldn't come to her in case he led the magpie to the nest, but once the danger had passed and the magpie was driven away he took up his position in the dead ash tree and began his territorial song. As soon as he did this, the female relaxed visibly, fluffed herself out and began fidgeting contentedly. It's fascinating to see how much the male can communicate to her.

There are three eggs now in the nest

I am beginning to get used to her ways. She's there by 10.30, and again I am already hard at work; in fact I'm concentrating on what I'm doing so hard that although I pretty much know that she is only in the nest for one reason and that is to lay another egg, I completely miss seeing her egg labour. In my defence, it has to be said that she seems to be getting as laid back about the whole process as I am, and perhaps it just wasn't as dramatic this time around. While she is still on the nest, the male bird comes to give her some food. He doesn't like me much; never did. He tuts in dissaproval when he spots me, but VERY quietly, almost under his breath. I couldn't quite make out what he had brought for lunch - it looked like a big lump of bread, and I can only hope it was something more nutritious. Mabe one of the neighbours has a fat bar out for the birds, but it looked a bit dry to be fat. At any rate there was a lot of inexpert fumbling as he tried to give the offering to his mate, and at one point he simply dropped it on her head. Something I noticed with the first brood was that the parents actually had to learn how to feed their young. I guess they were first timers, because when the chicks hatched they simply waved the food above the frantic babies beaks, occasionally dropping food onto them in a completely random way. Once the stronger of the chicks had grabbed it's first meal they seemed to get the hang of what they were supposed to do and food was rammed firmly into whichever open beak seemed hungriest. How odd that the male seems to have forgotten what to do! she stayed quite a bit longer this time, and even returned mid afternoon for another hour, which made me suspicious but when I looked there were three eggs rather than four.

Eggy closeup