3. The blackbird.—Compare the blackbird with the thrushes in respect of appearance, food, habits, and song. Notice the difference in the colouration of the male and female blackbird. Observe that the young bird has a spotted breast like that of a thrush, but that old blackbirds are not spotted. Have you noticed a blackbird show a preference for singing in any particular place? What observations would lead you to suppose that the blackbird is a near relative of the thrushes?
4. Fieldfares.—Distinguish these birds from thrushes. Notice that they arrive about October, and frequent fields in large parties.
The thrush family.—For many reasons the thrush family forms a convenient starting point in the study of the habits of common British birds. It includes some of our very finest songsters and therefore most popular birds; many of its members are abundant in most parts of the country, so that nearly every student has the opportunity of observing them at first hand; the birds are not specially shy; and, lastly, the family affords excellent material for the method of comparison and contrast, which, be it repeated, is the essence of all sound work in nature-study.
The song-thrush, which is also known as the throstle and mavis, is a shapely bird, easily recognisable by its grey, spotted breast ([Fig. 196]), which may be seen all the year round in wooded parts of the country. The male and female are very similar in appearance, and of almost equal size, measuring 8 or 9 inches from head to tail. The thrush generally feeds on the ground, hopping along on a pair of sturdy legs and feet, seizing and pulling out worms which incautiously show themselves at the mouths of their burrows, and catching insects and snails. A thrush usually has a favourite stone on which it cracks the shells of snails, and it is not uncommon to find, near the stone, a little heap of broken snail-shells—the remains of many a feast. In winter, when the summer diet can no longer be obtained, the thrush subsists largely upon the fruit of hawthorn, mistletoe, etc. Its beak, as is usual with birds, is distinctly adapted to the capture of its food, being, in this case, narrow, round, and fairly long. The thrush is a strong and rather rapid flier.
Fig. 196.—Song-Thrush. (× ⅙).
Thrushes begin to sing at the first signs of spring, pairing and commencing the work of nest-building in February or early March. The throstle’s song is surpassed by very few birds; and many people consider it equal, if not superior, to the nightingale’s. The song begins before sunrise, and may be heard when almost all other birds have retired to rest. The thrush has a curious habit of repeating each strain two or three times, “lest,” as Browning says, “you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture.” Many attempts have been made to imitate the song by words; Mr. R. Kearton[21] quotes with approval the following rendering by the famous Scottish naturalist Macgillivray:
“Qui qui qui kweeu quip, Tiurru tiurru chipiwi, Too-tee, too-tee, chiu choo, Chirri chirri chooee Quiu qui qui.”
But, as Mr. Kearton remarks, “no human words can ever represent, especially in cold type, the passionate vehemence, the sprightliness, or the tender pleading of a thrush’s song.”