A wonderful summer with blackbirds

…breeding in our back garden — a pictorial and video report

I have described our first close encounter with wild song birds, close to forty years ago, in this story. At the time we lived in the countryside in a nice quiet house, with a large garden, surrounded by forests and fields.

Since then we have moved into a city home, with a small back garden, sometimes visited by squirrels and song birds. This year a pair of common blackbirds decided to bring us a summer of great pleasure and enjoyment. They built a nest in the support structure of the garden pergola. It was amazing to watch them craft the firmly secured, well-sheltered breeding refuge, and then go on to bring up the chics.

First came the eggs, one, two, three, four and in the end five:

It took around two weeks of brooding for the first hatchling to appear, after which three of the other eggs hatched on a daily basis (one didn’t make it):

The great thing about this nest was that I could stand on a step ladder and look straight into it, record the development of the chicks at close range. The parents did not really enjoy my presence, but put up with it.

Soon it became feeding time. After foraging around our and the neighbours’ gardens the parent birds would bring back morsels for the chicks, and feed them — with me filming from just a foot or two away. At some stage I started fetching mealworms and fly grubs (from a fishing store). The parent birds would take as many as would fit in their beaks, and feed the little ones.

I could even feed them myself! The growing chick would immediately react to my scratching the side of the nest.

And the parents grew quite tame — they’d even come over to pick up mealworms between my feet. This went on until fledging time.

One chick fell out of the nest too early and stumbled around the garden. Grandson Enders told me not to touch it, “otherwise the parent birds would abandon it.” This, I knew, is a myth. Birds have a limited sense of smell, so human scent does not affect parental care. And here was proof: I returned the chick back to the nest and the parents continued to feed it, until it was completely ready to fledge.

Above is a strapping chick, about to leave the nest. The whole process was such a good deal for the birds that a month later they started it all over again: they tidied up the nest, laid new eggs (this time just four) and brought up new chicks. And gave us a wonderful summer of nature in our back garden.