Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Albinistic Blackbird in subsong

Walking to work this morning I heard some quiet, subdued subsong, just audible within a couple of metres of a pavement-side holly bush. Now I've never heard birds at this stage of their song development in May before but maybe the source of this subsong had something to do with it. Concealed in the holly was a red-eyed albinistic male Blackbird, its position right in the middle of two adjacent Blackbird territories. I walk this street at least twice a day and have never seen this individual before but clearly it has failed to acquire or maintain a territory. More observation is needed to determine if it has developed full song. It's strategy of keeping a low profile is probably a wise choice; singing from a prominent perch and it will be a likely target from rival male Blackbirds and possibly the local Sparrowhawks too!

1 comment:

Warren Baker said...

Makes me feel sorry for the blac...er whitebird!