A couple of years after we moved here, we were invited to dinner at the home of some new friends. They live in tune with nature in a beautiful, hand-made, mud-brick house, surrounded by a gorgeous garden.

So I was a little taken aback when one of them commented that a Blackbird had made a nest in the Wisteria and that they’d have to remove the nest to ensure the Blackbird didn’t return the next year. 

It seemed cruel but, coming from Sydney, we knew nothing about Blackbirds.

Blackbirds don’t live in Sydney… yet. Down south, they’re viewed by gardeners as nothing short of evil. 

You might remember my post ‘No Surrender’, on the twin horrors of gorse and blackberries in this region. One of the august acclimatisation societies that was responsible for introducing the blackberry, was also the well-meaning body that introduced the Blackbird to Australia.

In the 1850s, in an effort to alleviate the melancholy of homesick English gentry, the Common Blackbird was brought to Melbourne with the assistance of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria. It seems the pommies missed the song of Blackbirds in the morning. Little did the ASV know what they were unleashing.

Initially the birds thrived in the gardens of Melbourne, Ballarat and Bendigo and as the populations of these cities spread along rivers and streams, so did the Blackbirds. Taking up residence in the moist riverine valleys, they fed on invertebrates and the fleshy fruits of introduced plants such as  – you guessed it – blackberries. Thus the Blackbird aided and abetted the blackberry’s spread across the land.

The Common Blackbird (or the Turdus merula, if you want to be scientific and a little rude about it) has now become so well established that it’s one of the top 20 most common animal species of the state. I can well understand the antagonism felt about this bird. 

To find food, the Blackbird will rip into your lawn. It will also scatter mulch everywhere before raking the soil to dig up worms.

The next day it will awaken you at sparrow’s fart, merrily warbling the song that once gladdened the hearts of all those melancholic Englishmen. While the Blackbird is a source of extreme agitation to gardeners in southern Australia, it does sing beautifully. Not that anyone gives it credit for that any more.

I’ve read that if Wattle Birds visit your garden, you’ll seldom see Blackbirds. You’ll also see fewer small birds, such is the bullying nature of the Wattle Bird. Blackbirds will avoid gardens where there are cats and dogs… as will all other birds and wild animals. I’m afraid that any action taken to repel Blackbirds is likely to cause as much of a problem as the nuisance itself. 

If you live in a place where Blackbirds turn your garden in a war zone, take heart in this: To those of us who dwell in bushland areas, they’re not half as bad as a marauding pack of White-winged Choughs.