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Inspiring and Supporting Photographers of Australian Birds

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Common Blackbird

Common Blackbird (Image ID 48065)
Photographed byMichael Hamel-Green on Thu 16th Sep, 2021 and uploaded on same date.
Resolution1800x1281
Viewed418
ID48065
CommentBlackbirds are black. Or are they? Apparently not always. Females and juveniles are dark brown above, paler brown below. Males are usually thought of as black all over. Shakespeare certainly thought so, using the old English name of ‘Ousel’ for these birds: “The Wooseell cocke, so blacke of hew, With Orange-tawny bill” (Midsummer Night’s Dream). Yet some nonconformist males appear to be breaking the formal Blackbird dress code. Here is one of our resident backyard males taking his daily shower under our kettle fountain, and revealing some very white underwing feathers. According to the Australian Bird Guide entry on blackbirds, “Aberrant birds with patches of white feathers on wings or body are more common in Australian than in their native European range” (p.506). Aberrant or not, stigmatised as an 1860s European interloper or not, our resident backyard Blackbirds are an absolute delight, singing to us at dawn, day, and dusk with their seemingly endlessly varying mellifluous stream of notes, sometimes responding to each other from high points around our garden. Songbird improvisors without equal. No wonder that the Common Blackbird has been adopted by Sweden as its national bird, both in an initial poll in 1962 and then in an official national poll in 2015. Perhaps the explanation is that ‘Koltrasts’, as the Swedes call them, are the birds who most help them get through the gloom of long Scandinavian winters, singing so endearingly to them throughout the winter darkness. And perhaps that is why we are so comforted by them now in the middle of what seems an interminable Melbourne Covid lockdown. So keep on singing your hearts out, Koltrasts or Blackbirds, whether Black, Brown, Brindle or Pied, you are the ones keeping our spirits up in our present lockdown gloom.
EquipmentNikon Z7ii, Nikon 500mm PF f5.6
ISO 1000
1/800th f5.6
LocationKendall St, Coburg, Victoria
Keywordsmale
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