Demented blackbird

WOW! So yours wasn't a loner then. Different degrees of the problem in your group.

https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/201607/medium-256045-seahouses-and-northumberland-2012-018.jpg%3C/span%3E https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/201607/medium-848521-seahouses-and-northumberland-2012-019.jpg%3C/span%3E

These were some of it`s companions

At first I doubted that it was a sparrow, but it was with a few other sparrows, they came fairly close to where I was sitting, didn`t seem all that bothered.

We have black birds every now and then with a white patch and it is caused by the same genetic mutation as the sparrows we've both seen numberplease. I wish we'd had a camera handy too, but we were just sitting on the garden bench for a few moments when the sparrows landed on the washing line. We both froze and a few seconds later they were gone. Magical.

The condition is called leucism and it's to do with a defect in cells that produce pigments. (Albinism is caused by the lack of melanin only). At least I think this is what I read.

Very similar, less brown though on the one I saw.

Wilma, was it anything like this one that I spotted on Lindisfarne?

Anya we had a female blackbird for a few years with a curled up claw that hopped around. She raised young, so it didn't hold her back.

When I was at my Mum's the other week we saw a white baby sparrow being fed by an adult. It was a creamy white with a few flecks of beige. I looked it up online and it's quite rare. It's survived so far, but there's so many cats around it will need some luck.

gillyknits - that reminded me of the summer the year before. One evening,our young cat actually caught a bat. Goodness knows how she managed it,she was on the balcony,and came running in with it in her mouth. Thankfully it was still alive and appeared unharmed and my daughter managed to take it off her. It was such a sweet little thing. We put it back out on the balcony on the seat where it sat for a minute,then happily,it flew off.

The male blackbird that inhabits the rear of my garden has two legs, but one of them just hangs there and seems useless. It's been like that all summer and doesn't seem to bother him but, because I feel sorry for him he gets extra mealy worms.

I had a male blackbird in my garden the other day feeding two youngsters. They seemed to have all their flight feathers (one of them flew up onto the rotary clothes line) but their plumage wasn't adult. The male was trying to get one of them to take a small worm; it kept opening its beak but for some reason couldn't manage to take it down. Dad tried two or three times and then gave up and gave it to the other one who wolfed it! They both looked well fed. As for thrushes, we see them round here but rarely in the gardens.

Hooty, I have seen very few thrushes but there are masses of greenfinches in my garden. They make very short work of the sunflower hearts in my bird feeder. We also have flocks of jackdaws around here which make an awful racket early in the morning, so much so that I have taken to sleeping with the window shut. I can't put out fat balls any more because they and other bigger birds don't give the tits and finches a look-in. Luckily there's plenty of food around for the blackbirds at the moment.

Two fledgling seagulls on a roof across the road are practicing flying. Looks like they are dancing. Mine isn't old enough yet.

Btw, I don't suppose anyone's found a way of feeding the blackbirds without feeling the squirrels, pigeons, jays and magpies? (Is that racist?)

Pam Ferris played a pipistrelle (the iPad's never heard that word before) in 'Rumblings in the Rafters' on Radio 4. ?

Not seen any thrushes here for at least a couple of years, nor greenfinches either and we used to see loads of them.

I have had exactly the same problem. I know where the nest is, in the hedge just outside, and the two cats that set them off, like to sit on the front doorstep in the sun. So it's bedlam all day. And I mean all day. From first light they started, right up to sunset. The blooming birds were utterly neurotic. Gave their alarm call with a full beak of grubs too. It even took to perching on top the car, crapping all over it when ever possible. I felt like I wanted to shoot the birds......or the cats.......didn't really care which! Of course I didn't before anyone gets upset! But, marginally before it drove me mad.....the baby birds fledged! Peace at last. And next year, I won't be living her, so it won't be my problem!

Definitely fledgling time here, but I love seeing the families of birds in the bird baths

Good variety of birds here, but there are times when I could cheerfully strangle that damn collared dove that sits in the tree opposite the bedroom window!

Those birds have a monotonous call at the best of times, but this one always sounds annoyingly hesitant and just slightly off key!

We hear pigeons in the chimney, not sure if it`s echoing from the chimney top, or if they actually come down the chimney, but they sound to be right behind the fire back, day in, day out.

We had loads of thrushes in our garden in Leics - and blackbirds, and so many other birds too. So I am surprised you haven't seen one for so long. Here we have loads of fieldfares- same family, but noisy rather than 'singy'.

Our baby seagull is growing like mad, but has had every weather possible thrown at him - torrential rain, high winds and now extremely hot sun. He's sat up on the roof gaping.

I was in Durham at lunchtime and was excited to come across a thrush and it stayed for minutes completely unafraid. The last time I saw a thrush was in France two years ago. They used to be common garden birds when I was a child.

to you gillyknits What a lovely lady you are for looking after the surviving bat-let. I hope that Bartie is amongst the bats that fly around your home at dusk.

Like Hildajenni we have problems with pipistrelles, only they come down the chimney. I think they have a summer roost there. The first year it happened we ended up with our alarm going off while we were away. The neighbour with the key couldn't find anything ( the bats were roosting in the curtains) and when we gut it home, we had two dead ones and one barely alive. I fed the survivor(Bartie) on mealworms for three days and let him go in the dusk.
I like to think it's him when they swoop round the house at night!

I much rather listen to the sounds from a Blackbird than the sound from my neighbours alarm which goes off on a regular basis for no apparent reason always about 10mins after he has left for work,I was under the impression that they went off after so long but this one doesn't,I did't rather listen to the birds any morning.