Blackbird Songs Meanings

[Hampshire Hog]

A male blackbird, with young nearby, has recently befriended us in our garden and has made us curious as to what his various calls mean. He will come to within a foot of my feet if I am sitting quietly and he wants food. He is often waiting near the back door in the morning.

He has a soft, quiet but fairly fast choog....choog...choog which seems to mean "feed me" but is documented on British Garden Birds website as a warning call. When he flies off with food for his young he emits a raucous rattle like an alarm call but it seems out of context here. He also sometimes holds a quiet single note call for 1 or 2 seconds, I particularly wonder what this means as he seems to go into a trance when he does it !

How much do we humans really understand bird language ? Can anyone help ?

This is my first post so I hope I have the forum technicalities and etiquette correct !

[MilosMum]

Hi

Im not sure about what his song means but I wonder with him being so tame around you if he had maybe been reared by a human and released - hense him being so confident.

I suppose he could be asking to be fed?

(Just a thought....)

[Bramble]

This is not scientific research, just what I can make out from my local blackbirds

A soft chook-chook-chook: parents use this when they are looking for food. It seems like they are trying to ascertain where each other is and if they've found anything.

Chook-chook-CHOO-COOK-COOK-COOK: alarm rattle. Sparrowhawks, cats, seagulls, crows, big flocks of anything. They do a softer version of this which I feel means happiness, or an expression of success - thus a beakful of food is often accompanied by a chook-chook...etc as they fly into the nest.

Seeep. Seeep. Seeep: keeping in touch with the chicks, I think.

Our late blackbird's dusk song partially consisted of variations on Pop Goes The Weasel; our new bird is a bit erratic and hasn't really got a theme song

The only time I've had a blackbird come as close as yours was when Mrs Beaky was feeding chicks. Because I spent weeks defending the nest from the local moggies (and had many a surreptitious peek inside) I think she thought I was safe enough

[Deer Stalker]

Hi Hampshire Hog.

Welcome to WAB.

The soft choog choog notes are contact calls as Bramble says. The alarm rattle means just that. He will take your food but his instinct is still to be a bit wary of you, especially if he has chicks nearby.

Is the 'single quiet note' the seep, seep that Bramble mentions? This is their 'hard to locate' alarm call, as it is high pitched, it can be difficult to pin point so the bird can give the alarm without giving away its location if a predator is about. Keeping itself dead still will help conceal it & it may look like its in a trance.

[riverghost]

I too have befriended/been tollerated/allowed to enter my own garden by a blackbird and hen. The song I'm trying to work out is the rather hauntingly mellodic one they use after it's rained.
I have also found that if you paint something blue they read that as 'blackbird toilet here. please eat something vile before alighting'.

[Dan Salter]

This thread really threw me? a male with young nearby this early in March i thought? but then i clocked the post date.....doh

[riverghost]

Originally Posted by Dan Salter

This thread really threw me? a male with young nearby this early in March i thought? but then i clocked the post date.....doh

And the after rain song?

[hobble]

Originally Posted by Dan Salter

This thread really threw me? a male with young nearby this early in March i thought? but then i clocked the post date.....doh

Me too...........

[Dan Salter]

Originally Posted by riverghost

And the after rain song?

?? sory you have lost me?

[Kayleigh]

Originally Posted by Dan Salter

?? sory you have lost me?

All the birds sing in my garden when the rain has cleared..

[Dan Salter]

ahh i see , but you had "quoted" a link from my reply as if the rain song was connected to my reply? (which it had no relation )...stop confusing me people im having enough stress over the chiff chaff !

[Kayleigh]

Originally Posted by Dan Salter

ahh i see , but you had "quoted" a link from my reply as if the rain song was connected to my reply? (which it had no relation )...stop confusing me people im having enough stress over the chiff chaff !

Sorry Dan..I hope that's what riverghost meant any way..

[riverghost]

So basically birds sing after it rains are saying 'Sodding British weather!'

[witham]

Originally Posted by riverghost

So basically birds sing after it rains are saying 'Sodding British weather!'

It was perhaps unprintable what they were all singing after the 'big' earthquake then, when they all let rip when the shaking had stopped