A new songbird

The Common Blackbird is a medium-sized songbird which feeds on invertebrates (particularly worms) and fleshy fruits.  Males have entirely black plumage, a bright yellow beak and a yellow ring around the eye.  Females are brown with mottling on the breast and a brown beak.  It is the most abundant bird species in the Melbourne metropolitan area and is also found throughout the state, from the coast to the alps, in forests, woodlands, farmlands and heathlands.  Blackbirds were introduced to Victoria, probably many times, during the mid 1800s and have now become so well established that they are in the top 20 commonest animal species of the state.

The song of the Australian Magpie is probably the most pleasing and evocative sound of the Australian bush.  Poems have been written about it, the Magpie is the emblem of South Australia because of it, and almost everyone who has lived in this country can recognise it.  Australians living overseas that hear the caroling, on a television show or film, are often subject to bouts of homesickness.  Birdsong can do that.  When the early Europeans came to this country the sounds of the Australian birds were not familiar to them and many missed the songbirds of their home.  To help alleviate this melancholy the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria (ASV) was an ally to their cause and almost as soon as classic European-style gardens had become established so the songbirds followed.

One of the first of these songbirds was the Common Blackbird.  It has always been a favourite of the Europeans and of the English in particular.  Blackbirds figure large in the folklore of England dating back to the Druids to whom it was one of their five totem animals.  It was regarded by ancient Britons as the original blacksmith, from its habit of using a rock as an anvil to break open snail shells.  There are French and English tales of how the Blackbird became black and how its beak became golden.  Poems have been written about it by the likes of Alfred Tennyson, William Henley and Edward Thomas, and also by anonymous, political satirists who told of 24 of them baked in a pie for the king.  Blackbirds even feature in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.  To many wealthy English settlers a blackbird with its melodious song - regarded as second only to the nightingale and more accessible for it's daytime vocalisations - was an essential component of a proper garden.  So Blackbirds were brought to Australia, with the aid and encouragement of the ASV, but not for the standard reasoning this society gave to most of its introductions - that of bringing useful animals and plants to the colonies - but for the simple reason that the English missed their singing.

A great many animals and plants were brought to Victorian gardens in the 19^th century and most of them stayed there or died out.  The Blackbird, on the other hand, was almost immediately at home and its numbers increased quickly.  To begin with they remained in the urban landscape near Melbourne and major rural centres such as Ballarat and Bendigo, but eventually they found a place in woodlands and forests, especially along streams and rivers, which provided corridors for population expansion.  Blackbirds feed on fleshy fruits, which are generally more abundant in riverine vegetation, and by fossicking in the soil for invertebrates, which are often easier to find in the moist, friable soils of river banks.  Their expansion was facilitated by the introduction of European fleshy-fruited plants, such as blackberries and cotoneaster, which also thrived in shaded gullies.

The Blackbird and the introduced plants that they fed on became allies in each others population movements and riverine vegetation across the state was amongst the first to become a source of problem environmental weeds.  Blackbirds are also implicated in the distribution of native species, such as Sweet Pittosporum (Pittosporum undulatum), into areas other than their natural environment. 

For a bird that was once so loved it is a little ironic that Blackbirds are now regarded with some disdain by Australian gardeners.  Few appear to wax lyrical about their song, in fact the harsh alarm call is often spoken of as a source of irritation, and many complain about their habit of ripping up lawns and neat garden beds in their search for food.   There are many books and garden advice columns which devote significant amounts of text on how to deal with the problem of blackbirds in gardens, and very few of them mention their singing.

© Paul Gullan, Viridans Biological Databases