Urban Aviary by Stephen Moss

Author:Stephen Moss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
Published: 2019-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

Groningen, The Netherlands

25.5cm (10in)

36cm (14in)

95g (31/4oz)

The blackbird is not only one of the commonest of all European birds, it is also one of the most familiar. Breeding in every European country except Iceland, and east across Asia to southeast China, it is one of the world’s most adaptable species, able to live in any habitat with trees. Like many common woodland birds, it has also adapted very well to living in cities. In the north of the Netherlands, the historic city of Groningen is ideal for blackbirds, having plenty of leafy parks and gardens that mimic the woodland-edge habitat of this species.

The male blackbird lives up to its name, being black with a yellow bill and a gold ring around each eye. Females and youngsters are mostly brown in colour, with variable buff and dark spotting in the breast, and can sometimes be mistaken for thrushes.

Groningen, and cities like it, offer a number of advantages to the blackbird. First amongst these is the urban heat-island effect, which allows urban blackbirds to begin nesting far earlier than their rural counterparts. As this species can have at least three, and as many as five, broods a year, this is a significant benefit. Food is more reliable in cities, too, as in winter people often feed the birds in their gardens. As a result, city blackbirds tend to live longer than their country cousins.

However, in recent years, scientists at the University of Groningen have discovered that city life may not be quite as good as was thought. They compared the health of urban blackbirds with their counterparts in nearby forests, specifically focusing on telomeres, the sequences of DNA that form a protective barrier on each of the bird’s chromosomes. This showed that blackbirds living in the city had significantly shorter telomeres, indicating that these birds were more stressed than those in a more natural, wooded habitat.

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