Blackbirds at Play – A Cock’s Struggle to Hold Your Garden

This article is based on actual observations from my organic garden home. An important part of organic growing is arranging for nature to reach its full potential. That involves encouraging wild birds and other wild animals.

You’ll discover below how organic success is making me feel rather like a cross between Tarzan and Dr. Doolittle.  Because it seems that I’ve created a veritable oasis for wild birds. Watching them from my window has become big entertainment. And now I delight at hearing their beautiful melodious songs too. Indeed I join in the singing myself, at least that’s what the birds seem to think.

There is a dark side to this natural harmony. The cock fights would be ridiculous if they weren’t so very serious. It all begins as the birds lay claim to territories for nesting. The cocks are driven to protect these territories that extend from nest sites, to song posts and feeding areas.

My garden has become prime territory. A few years ago, three cock blackbirds went parallel hopping along my lawn, first in one direction and then back again. Yes, their behavior was just like the rutting of stags in the Scottish highlands or bull rhinoceros on the Serengeti.

 Only this was my garden. Yet the line between competing birds would shift first one way then the other. Needless to say that two is company while three is a crowd.

Two birds try to drive each other from every perch in the vicinity. They leap around high branches chasing, one after the other. They charge each other off vantage points. I suppose the aim of this posturing is to avoid a damaging beak and claw cock fight.

But they are inevitable as the tension mounts to breaking point. Two cock birds fly up vertically, scratching and pecking. One of the contenders usually ends up flying backwards or even upside. Sometimes they struggle on the ground when one appears to be subdued. During one scrap the resident bird seems to have been pushed back so that its tail feathers were broken. Yet Half Tail held on.

The contention for territory took a more sinister turn next. The resident cock blackbird held about two thirds of the garden. Bored with posturing, the competitor took to flying straight in over the hedge from next door. The intruder aimed straight for the resident black bird.