Yesterday afternoon I saw a male Common Blackbird perched quietly on an electrical cable. This is the first blackbird I’ve noticed in our garden since early last winter.
Five weeks into spring, I would expect to see two, sometimes three males, pursuing each other helter-skelter through the garden almost every day and, on calm spring evenings,
an hour or so before and beyond dusk, a dominant blackbird would occupy a prominent perch and regale the neighbourhood with a cascade of melodic notes. But not this spring. So where have they gone? Perhaps it’s too obvious to suggest they’ve moved to littoral
areas where worms may be closer to the soil surface.
Incidentally, does anyone know if there’s published work on the movements of Common Blackbirds in s. e. Australia? I somehow suspect altitudinal movements in addition
to drought related shifts. Other than HANZAB I’ve not found anything.
John Layton
Holt.
