NATURE AND MAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 1, 3 January 1939, Page 6

NATURE AND MAN

SONGS OF THRUSH AND BLACKBIRD WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? (Edited by Leo Fanning). Some folk claim that they can always distinguish the song of a thrush from that of a blackbird. I simply don't believe them. I have heard both birds thousands of times, and I firmly believe that either can imitate the other. How well I remember an afternoon when I was strolling down a path of the hilly Town Belt of Wellington I heard a song. "A thrush,” I thought. "I feel sure it is a thrush. I can tell by the occasional chuckles and gurgles—delightful little variations. No blackbird does that kind of improvision.” Then I looked about me carefully and I located the singer, unmistakably. It was a blackbird. “Never again,” I decided; “Never again shall I pretend to be an authority on that matter. Well, let us ponder on the evidence of that famous bird-lover. Viscount Grey of Fallodon, in his book, “The Charm of Birds". “The thrush," he remarks, “has a variety of notes, but the order in which he gives them is improvised. We may listen to a thrush for a time without hearing the notes we most desire, for some of his notes are much less agreeable that others; a musical phrase resembling ‘did-he-do-it?’ may be repeated two or three times and then abandoned for some other notes. In fact, the manner of the thrush when singing gives an impression of selection and choice of the sound that he will make next. He sings perched in a tree, to which he has mounted for this purpose. There he will remain his position and his song for some time, especially about dawn and sunset, preferably on the same tree day after day, pausing in his performance as if to select and choose his notes. Probably if birds were to be regarded as endeavouring to please us by song, the thrush should be the first among British birds. He does not rank in the very highest class for quality, but he certainly comes high in the second class. His is undoubtedly a major song, and owing to to the number of thrushes, their persistent singing and the many months in which they are to be heard, we hear more of their song in the South of England than that of any other bird, except the robin. In song the thrush seems to be working very hard to please, and he succeeds. His song, too, can give a very pleasant impression of quiet contentment as well as of exultation. “Occasionally a thrush will introduce some freak sound and make it part of his song. Many years ago an attempt was made to keep whitefaced whistling ducks in the collection of waterfowl at Fallodon. They are not hard, but one of them survived for about two years, and being very tame, as is the manner of its kind, the whistling note with which it saluted every one it saw became the most distinct and familiar sound in the garden. In January it died. In the following April we came home for Easter, and from high up in a silver fir came a perfect imitation of the call of the white-faced duck. It was made by a thrush, but the bird did not continue the imitation after this spring, though it was often to be heard during that Easter holiday.’’

Now for the blackbird. “It is not possible,” continues Lord Grey, “to explain why the blackbird’s notes excel and why they mean so much to us. To me there is something in it that I can best desc ibe as intimacy. The songs of other birds please or delight us, but that of the blackbird seems to

make a direct appeal to us and stirs seme inward emotion. It is one of five bird sounds for which I have a particular affection. The song is a linked phrase, repeated again and again at intervals. As a rule the bird chooses a perch for the purpose of singing, but occasionally changes its place and sings while flying from one perch to another. It is a supreme moment when a blackbird, passing from one bush of flowering hawthorn to another, as if one spot could not contain its joy, utters its song on the wing in the ectasy of mid-May. “There is a general type of song common to all blackbirds, but sometimes an individual bird develops a phrase peculiarly its own, and can be identified by this in the same place day after day throughout the season of song. “Blackbirds have a common trick of ending their song with an inferior note, almost a squeak.” Well, I have often heard a thrush’s song end in an amusing squeak. What is one to do about it? A Lover of Liberty. Whenever I see a caged bird again I shall think of a wood-pigeon mentioned by Lord Grey. “My wife,” he ; wrote, “once reared by hand a woodI pigeon that was hatched under a tame I dove. It would feed readily and eagerly from the lips. For a time it remained tame and without fear, and it piked to be caressed; in August it was I put into an aviary; there its native I wildness began to assert itself—it

[would retreat to one end of the aviary and thence fly with force against the (wire at the other end, as if it hoped i by the impetus of long flight to break [through and get away. This was not from fear, for the bird did not flutter when we entered; it made these violent flights when no one was near; We could hear them from a distance; they were not caused by fear, but by sheer impulse to fly. Gradually the bird grew less tame and would not let itself be touched, nor would it feed from the hand. So it passed the winter; from having been the tamest it became the wildest bird in the aviary. Its head was sometimes scarred from the deliberate flights against the wire. It was let out, and for a time it came for food that was placed on the top of the aviary, and it frequently visited the garden; and though it flew away when approached, it was recognisably tarfier than its kind, perching in a cherry tree close to the windows of the house. Eventually it was merged in the wild stock, and although in July a wood-pigeon would sometimes fly low over the garden, we ceased to be sure of its identity. Of many birds of other species thus reared by hand, I have never known one that showed such abhorrence of confinement even under the enlarged conditions *of an aviary. This example confirmed the common i saying that the wood-pigeon cannot .be tamed. Other birds that, are brougnt up to regard a human being as a foster-parent remain contented and attached.” A Cunning Hen. After some comment on the gay courtship colours of the males of species of birds, the author says:— “It is assumed that their object is to impress the females, and there is no doubt some truth in this. Female teal, sometimes a single bird, may be watched enciting several males to display, and the performance may be continued for some time, the males whistling and displaying against each other, but not necessarily engaging in combat. If they slacken in their display the female will by voice and gesture give incitement, and she evidently enjoys the perfomance.”