Blackbirds with missing tails.. why?

[jamess]

Hi,

A regular male blackbird that has been coming into the garden for about 8 months has recently lost it's tail. I've seen it happen with a few other blackbirds in the past, and they grew back, but I've always wondered why these have lost them - they look very strange and small without there long tail! Any answers would be great.

[Hedera]

Birds often moult after the breeding season. They have worked hard and look very tatty. Sometimes they moult in patches, but usually retain some primary feathers. By the end of autumn they will be fully clothed for the winter. They may moult again in early spring to look their best!

[Dogghound]

Yes blackbirds usually go through a postbreeding moult before october. I ringed a female last week that had all its tail feathers worn/snapped it was in quite a state, breeding can take alot out of birds which have less time to preen and look after themselves.

[jamess]

ahh.. thank you both for your answers!

[RKB]

Originally Posted by Hedera

Birds often moult after the breeding season. They have worked hard and look very tatty. Sometimes they moult in patches, but usually retain some primary feathers. By the end of autumn they will be fully clothed for the winter. They may moult again in early spring to look their best!

Blackbirds actually moult during the breeding season (midsummer). In fact, most birds moult overlapping with breeding. They don't moult in patches, but in a defined order of feather tracts - the primaries are not retained but moulted sequentially so that there are always enough to fly but all eventually get replaced. The tail is often dropped and replaced almost all at once - which is what the OP is seeing now. They only moult once a year, never in early spring. Even birds which change appearance in early spring do so through wear of existing feather tips to reveal underlying colours (e.g. Chaffinch), not by moult

Juveniles hatched this year will replace their head and body feathers a couple of months after fledging, retaning the wing/tail flight feathers until next summer, when they'll moult everything like the adults.

[poppingjay]

I've seen no end of rather shabby looking blackbirds, one of 'my' resident females has got no tail feathers at all and there's a male with the top of his head completely bald... he looks like friar tuck He was feeding a fledging on my garden wall this afternoon and it looked a lot bigger than him. Poor bedraggled things, it's been non stop for them over the past few months.