(European) Blackbird

whis4ey · Post by **whis4ey** » Jul 12, 2007 11:24 am

Another marvellous songster who just loves digging up worms

wishiwere · Post by **wishiwere** » Jul 13, 2007 6:41 am

A songbird? Really? How big are these? Love that orange beak! Our blackbirds have more of a cackle than a song

And love to waste seed by throwing those they don't like off the feeder to get to what they want! HAte that! But it does feed the ground feeders

whis4ey · Post by **whis4ey** » Jul 13, 2007 10:42 am

A member of the thrush family I think
A most beautiful tuneful song

This one is a young one otherwise I wouldn't have gotten a photograph as they are so timid and quick to fly off

Tigger · Post by **Tigger** » Jul 13, 2007 12:25 pm

I felt fortunate that a couple of merles noires would hang out in the courtyard of the hotel where I lived in Paris. A pleasant song to wake up to.

wishiwere · Post by **wishiwere** » Jul 13, 2007 3:04 pm

do you know of a site that has their songs listed with them? Is there an audubon society in your area?

whis4ey · Post by **whis4ey** » Jul 13, 2007 3:34 pm

I don't Jane. I would love that. I have often wondered at which bird I was listening to at any particular time
I know only about 3 with any certainty

Tigger · Post by **Tigger** » Jul 16, 2007 10:38 am

I might have thought the folks at Cornell would have one, but i didn't find it. Wikipedia has a song recording under Blackbird (turdus merula).

whis4ey · Post by **whis4ey** » Jul 16, 2007 1:33 pm

How do you play that recording?
My computer doesn't recognise the extension

wishiwere · Post by **wishiwere** » Jul 16, 2007 7:27 pm

Hm...I don't know either!

I've listened to other bird songs on that site, and never had problems. I have no idea what the .ogg extension is?

wishiwere · Post by **wishiwere** » Jul 16, 2007 7:33 pm

This site has information about why you can't hear it! It's a thing with microsoft windows doesn't have the support for the type of sound wave and you have to d/l another program. There is information on that also on this page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Media_help

whis4ey · Post by **whis4ey** » Jul 17, 2007 7:37 am

Thanks Jane
That was useful and I can now hear the blackbird

I have since found this site which lists the songs of quite a few birds (click on the Latin name)
It is educational

http://www.virtual-bird.com/birdsounds.htm

wishiwere · Post by **wishiwere** » Jul 17, 2007 3:02 pm

Thanks! doesn't have a lot of the common ones we get, but still a great site to have. Here's one that has a lot of songs on it for ours.

If you know the common name, just type it in the search. Many have the songs on there too.

http://www.birdweb.org/birdweb/browse_birds.aspx

Gruntfuttock · Post by **Gruntfuttock** » Jul 18, 2007 8:11 pm

They are very territorial and have a very distinctive song. In spring they sing from the top of their tree especially at dusk. It lets us know the warmer weather is on its way.

Apparently, their songs vary in different parts of the country, they have accents like humans.

Spider · Post by **Spider** » Jul 18, 2007 9:09 pm

LOL that's what my father said about the crows in NC (we had always lived in MA & ME). He swore the crows had southern accents...then he found out they were Fish Crows rather than the "average" crow we had up north. It was funny while it lasted.