Blackbird
Turdus merula · Thrushes
Blackbird on a vineyard post
Bordeaux and the surrounding area, 8 May 2026
A Blackbird on sentry duty on a vineyard post between rows of new growth, outside Bordeaux in May. One of the most common garden and farmland birds across Europe, and a bird of the vineyard in particular, since it eats the grapes in September and the growers know it.
Glossy black with a bright orange-yellow bill and eye-ring: a male, since females run brown. The song, from a post like this at dusk, is the one most Europeans know best, and it was the blackbird, not the American one, that the Beatles wrote about.
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