A Blackbird sings a strange song ...

I visited a farm lane in the Orton Grange area south of Carlisle today where an unusual song had been puzzling some local residents ...

The song had been noticed last spring and again this year ... I listened to a recording which included a rising and falling scale and also a 'car alarm ' like sound ... I was equally puzzled ...

In the morning sunshine today there were Great Tits calling ... Tree Sparrows were active and Stock Doves flew between the mature oaks bordering the fields ... then a Blackbird sang a fairly typical song from high in a tall oak and I watched it as it took up different positions within the branches ... then came the rising and falling scale ... it repeated that and then came the ' car alarm ' type of mechanical sound ...

I saw the bird fly to another tree and repeat the performance before coming back to its original position ... it was quite clear that all these song elements were coming from this same bird ...

Here is a complete song section -




The 'car alarm ' element is at the start ... at 7 secs a typical section ... and again at 13 and 20 secs ... then the up and down scale at 32 secs ...

The typical songs look like this -

The 'car alarm ' like this -

And the ascending and descending scales like this -

I had not been aware that Blackbirds produced these atypical song sections so I checked in BWP ( Birds of the Western Palearctic )  ... mimicry of 11 bird species is noted and mechanical sounds can be copied ... human whistles can be in the repertoire which can be added to in successive years of the bird's life