Hi folks, wonder if anyone can ident the bird seen in the garden on May 14
in Taunton Somerset UK.
It had a brown back and tail , the size of a blackbird. The undercarriage was
speckled like a thrush but seemed to be in line fore and aft. The main feature was the eye which had a circular black region round it, not a dark line, the whole area was dark. It had a harsh call and quite a sharp dark beak. Sorry no picture, it was off.
It has been suggested that it is a leucistic partially albino blackbird. Fair
dinkum but would albinism affect its call, and I've seen a picture of one here and it does'nt look much like it. Any ideas please ??
Regards Paul46
Hi Paul,
Had a look at this post earlier and was perplexed, noticed you got no response so thought I'd bump it. What about possible dark phased (melanistic?) Song Thrush. You mention the obvious speckling of the breast (usually fairly subdued in a female blackbird). Did you get any feel for the jizz of the bird? Was it like a thrush and blackbird - both similar in habits and flight characteristics? Not sure what you mean about the dark colouring around the eye though, from my obs. it often seems that both Blackbird (f) and Song Thrush tend to have a distinct darker eye ring.
Okay, not a big help, but maybe some extra experts will get involved.
What about a Mistle Thrush? Size is about right - not sure about the black 'eye' though.