The European population has been estimated at between 38 and 55 million pairs and the only European country with no breeding blackbirds is Iceland; small numbers do occur there in the winter.
The first blackbird song of the year can usually be heard at the end of January or early February, though urban birds often start earlier. Studies have shown that the first birds to sing are cocks that were hatched the year before. The older birds do not start singing until well into March.
Blackbirds are what is known as sexually dimorphic, which means that the plumage of the female is completely different from that of the male.
The song Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, four-and-twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie was actually a coded message used to recruit crew members for the notorious 18th-century pirate Blackbeard.
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