• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Bullying blackbirds (1 Viewer)

Squibb99

New member
During this cold spell, several interesting birds have attempted to feed from our garden. Female black caps and song thrush. What happens every time is that our local blackbirds once they spot the visitors gang up and chase them off. They allow starlings, doves and pigeons, dunnocks. I was wondering if this does affect in a small way the decline of thrushes.
 
Hi again Squibb!

I've moved your thread to the Bird Behavior section of the Forum and have subscribed you to this thread so that you will be notified when anyone posts a reply.
 
Yes - Song Thrushes are adapted to feeding on widely scattered, dispersed food, while Blackbirds are better at using concentrated food sources like bird tables, which they occupy by bullying other birds. So bird tables encourage high Blackbird numbers, and that makes life difficult for Song Thrushes.
 
Interesting. I have only seen our blackbirds being aggressive towards one another. That being said, we haven’t had any blackcaps, and just one song thrush.
 
Last edited:
Blackbirds

I forgot to say that bullying blackbirds seems to me to happen with resident blackbirds versus the winter visiting blackbirds
 
Warning! This thread is more than 5 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top