Blackbird

“ With his glossy coat and yellow beak the Blackbird is a handsomer bird than the Thrush; his food is much the same: he builds his nest in similar places; he is a great glutton when gooseberries are ripe, and his rich mellow song is highly inspiriting. But he is suspicious and wary; however hard pressed he may be by hunger, you will rarely see him hunting for food in the open field. He prefers the solitude and privacy of 'the bush'. In a furze-brake, a coppice, a wooded water-course, or a thick hedge-row, he chooses his feeding ground, and allows no sort of partnership. ”

“ Like a great human artist, the blackbird makes no effort, being fully conscious that his liquid tone cannot be matched. He utters a few delicious notes, and carelessly quits the green stage of the oak till it pleases him to sing again. Without the blackbird, in whose throat the sweetness of the green fields dwells, the days would be only partly summer. ”

“ A blackbird flies up to drink or bathe, never at the grassy edge, but always choosing a spot where he can get at the stream free from obstruction. The sound of many birds singing comes from the hedge across the meadow; it mingles with the rush of the water through a drawn hatch—finches and linnets, thrush and chiff-chaff, wren and whitethroat, and others farther away, whose louder notes only reach. ”

“ All nature claps its hands in pride and ecstasy.
With a hurried Cha, cha, cha, cha! the blackbird leaves the stone wall—a cock-bird, black as jet—to attend his lady on the park’s surface. A rollicking sprightliness characterises his movements; his tone is sharp, full of intricacies, hard to interpret. In autumn, when the nests are empty, how delightful to walk through the copse—a clump of dwarfed trees, everything in repose. ”

“ Aloft, in the broad-leaved sycamore-tree, the blackbird was singing as if he were out of his senses for joy; his song was as loud as any nightingale, and his heart was glad, because his young brood was hatched, and he knew that they now sat with their little yellow beaks poking out of the nest, and thinking what a famous bird their father was. All the robins and tomtits and linnets and redstarts that sat in the trees of the garden den shouted vivas and bravuras, and encored him delightfully. ”

“ After a passing fall of rain, one of our sudden mid-day thunder showers for instance, when the full burst of sunshine, bright and fierce, breaks again on the freshened landscape;—the first bird seen creeping out from the thicket to dry his wings, and regain the fields, is the Savanna Blackbird. The Mocking-bird, ready as he is with his song, to gladden the landscape once more, is seldom before the shrill Blackbird, in breaking the hush that succeeds the overpast shower. ”

“ Worms, grubs, caterpillars, insects, all found their way to the little gaping mouths,––nothing came amiss, until the Blackbird felt that if it went on much longer there would be no insects left in the whole country, and that his young ones would certainly die of indigestion. However, the little birds flourished, and grew apace, and each night as the Blackbird drew in his wings for a few short hours of rest, he wondered when the brood would be old enough to feed themselves, for he looked forward, and with no small longing, to that time of rest. ”

“ It was droll to see how this "meek and gentle" fellow met blackbird impudence. If one of the sable gentry came down too near a dove, the latter gave a little hop and rustled his feathers, but did not move one step away. For some occult reason the blackbird seemed to respect this mild protest, and did not interfere again.
Would one suspect so solemn a personage of joking? yet what else could this little scene mean? A blackbird was on the ground eating, when a dove flew down and hovered over him as though about to alight upon him. ”

“ The blackbird is the shadow of the thrush: you seldom see or hear one without the other: nor, indeed, is either of them often mentioned alone. Yet the blackbird is probably the more commonly seen. For one thing, it is a very conspicuous bird; for another, it is not so diffident as the thrush. It is the blackbirds that you see flying out of the cherry-trees and strawberry-beds, but if you set nets for the marauders, as I did one year to stock an aviary, you catch quite as many mavises as merles. ”

“ Why it should ever have been called a thrush blackbird is one of those inscrutable mysteries peculiar to the naming of birds [Pg_47] which are so frequently called precisely what they are not. In spite of the compliment implied in associating the name of one of our finest songsters with it, the rusty blackbird has a clucking call as unmusical as it is infrequent, and only very rarely in the spring does it pipe a note that even suggests the sweetness of the redwing's. ”

“ American blackbirds do not sing well; the so-called crow-blackbird, so common in flocks in autumn, makes a noise like tonsillitis, or as if he had a boy’s voice in process of changing, or as if he were a hinge that needed oiling. Our redwing blackbird, with his scarlet epaulets, has a good-natured and perky wheeze, which can hardly be called singing. But the English and Continental blackbird pours out of his throat the most heavenly melody. One Winter day in Munich, in the midst of a snowstorm, I saw a blackbird perched on a tree directly in front of the University building. ”

“ At this summer-time, it was a great pleasure to the Blackbird during the afternoon to perch on the limb of an old fir-tree on the lawn, and watch the squirrels at their gambols. They would play long, long games of hide and seek among the dark branches, and then, tired of that, they would chase each other from bough to bough, scattering the pine-cones, which dropped with a soft sound on the grass below. Little wagtails ran nimbly about the lawn uttering their shrill “quit, quit,” and catching as they ran the gnats and other insects. ”

“ Savages only are exempt from the sparrow: only barren land from the blackbird. As soon as a garden is laid out, a hedge set, an orchard planted, the blackbird comes. Except within easy flight of land that man has tended, it is not found. Its nest, again, has a curious point in its favour, for it is so well built—being a cup of mud strongly felted with moss and grass both inside and out—and, as a rule, in such a sheltered spot that it lasts through the winter, and mice are often glad, when their tenements underground become uncomfortable, to occupy them. ”

“ The winter of 1878 was certainly an unusually dreary one, and so thought a remarkably fine young Blackbird, as he perched one morning on the bare bough of a spreading lime-tree, whose last brown leaf had fallen to the ground some weeks before. ”

“ Not unfrequently we are startled by a shrill scream in some lonely place, and out rushes the Hopping Dick, jumping with rapidity across the road, almost close to our horse’s feet. He greatly reminds me of the English Blackbird, in his sable plumage, and bright yellow beak, but especially when hopping along the branches of some pimento tree, or upon the sward beneath, in those beautiful park-like estates called pens. ”

“ The tall stems are favorite haunts of the red-winged blackbird, who tilts about among them, showing his scarlet wings and occasionally plunging into the depths below, as though he found a spot there much to his mind. ”

“ The blackbird is of a shy and restless disposition, courting concealment, and rarely seen in flocks, or otherwise than singly or in pairs, and taking flight when startled with a sharp shrill cry. It builds its nest in March, or early in April, in thick bushes or in ivy-clad trees, and usually rears at least two broods each season. ”

“ The crops of sweet singing Blackbirds are supposed to hold the souls of those in purgatory until the judgment day; and whenever the Blackbird's notes are particularly shrill, these parched and burning souls are imploring for rain, which never fails of coming in response to the bird cries for their relief. ”

“ The opening and shutting of the window had frightened the Blackbird; 18 he had flown to a more distant bush; but as the more courageous Robin only fluttered about for a moment, the Blackbird soon came back, and in less than a minute the Robin was upon the gravel path hard at work picking up the dainty white crumbs. The Blackbird still hesitated on the laurel branch, loth to remain, yet fearful to advance, but at last, impelled by a sudden pang of hunger, he ventured to join his red-breasted friend. ”

“ As evening draws on, the whistling of blackbirds and the song of thrushes seem to come from everywhere around. The trees are full of them. Every few moments a blackbird passes over, flying at some height, from the villa gardens and the orchards without. ”

“ The Blackbird settled on a bough close to the Rook, and as he did so he noticed some swallows skimming over the lawn far below them. They were beautiful birds, their blue-black plumage glinted in the sunshine, and now and 41 then a quick turn displayed their brown throats and white breasts. They were darting hither and thither, so rapidly that the eye could hardly follow them, catching the many-winged insects as they flew by. Then they would suddenly dart off to the topmost gables of the old mansion, where their compact mud nests could be plainly seen against the dark gray stones. ”

“ Again the participating musical stumble of the blackbird comes from the tree-branch on the copse margin—a male voice, a bass, with variations of chattering fluency. Late insects linger at the outskirts, and roam the extent of the park. The insect hum rises from the herbage here and there; a bee, trapped by the spider’s snare, hums, buzzing vengeance on the fisher casting his silken net there. In the bushes, a slight fluttering—a leaf floats unheard to the ground, to increase the mouldy earth. ”

“ Liking either heat or cold (he is fond of wintering in Florida, but often retreats to the north while the marshes are still frozen) ; enjoying not only the company of large flocks of his own kind with whom he travels, but any bird associates with whom he can scrape acquaintance; or to sit quietly on a tree-top in the secluded, inaccessible bog while his mate is nesting; satisfied with cut-worms, grubs, and insects, or with fruit and grain for his food — the blackbird is an impressive and helpful example of how to get the best out of life. ”

“ Blackbirds seem such human, humorous birds one can almost fancy them playing such pranks just for the fun of it.
The blackbird colony was a busy one nesting-time. The builders would fly down to the road to get material, stepping along quickly, looking from side to side with an alert, business-like air, as if they knew just what they wanted. Some of them used the button-balls to line their nests.
A pair had built in one of the round mats of mistletoe at the end of a branch, and while looking at the nest one day I was amazed to see a butcherbird come flying in a straight line toward it. ”

“ The Blackbird
[Hopping about.] Oh, I see—The light!
[All make a violent motion in his direction; the Blackbird frightened, hides among the fagots.]
The Grand-duke
[Emphatically.] Never speak that word! When that word is spoken, Night at the horizon feels a crawling discomfort, a titillation underneath her wing.
The Blackbird
[Cautiously correcting himself.] The brightness of— [General start of dismay repeated; the Blackbird again dodges behind the fagots.]
An Owl
[Hurriedly.] Never utter that horrible grating word, which so hatefully suggests the scratching of a match! ”

“ To chase the beloved until she drops with fatigue seems to be the blackbird idea of a tender attention, and possibly the pursuit of his spouse already spoken of may have been of this sort, merely a loverly demonstration. But with the babies it was a different thing. Heretofore I had seen blackbird fathers devoted attendants on their young, working as hard as the mothers in seeking supplies, and following up the wandering brood to administer them. But this bird, I observed, was avoided by the little folk. ”

“ It took but a minute to get the large, flat-bottomed row-boat ready for the start, and we were soon gliding along, an oar’s-length from shore, scanning every tree, bush, and bunch of rushes, in search of nests, those of the Red-winged Blackbird being very plenty and placed both in bushes or rushes in about equal numbers. A pair of Kingbirds had selected as the place for their summer home, a large, low willow limb which projected over the water; a peep into the nest revealed three eggs, common, yet so beautiful in their bed of wool and feathers. ”

“ The Robin had shown him five little pale eggs, white spotted with brown, at the bottom of the nest, half hidden by the soft hair.
The Blackbird had also come across a most remarkable nest, that of the golden-crested wren. “My old friend, the Rook, tells me,” said the Blackbird, “that this wren is the very smallest of our birds. He certainly is a great beauty with his crown of golden feathers. His nest is in yonder yew-tree. It seems large for a bird of his size. It is almost entirely built of moss, and, can you believe it, the wren uses spider’s webs to bind it together! ”

“ I noticed the corn, but did not think of the pleasure it would give me, until the next morning, when I was awakened about four o'clock by loud and excited talk in blackbird tones, and hurried to the window, to find that I had half the birds of the neighborhood before me.
Most in number, and most noisy, were the common blackbirds, who just at that time were feeding their young in a grove of evergreens back of the house, where they had set up their nurseries in a crowd, as is their custom. It is impossible to take this bird seriously, he is so irresistibly ludicrous. ”