EUROPEAN BLACKBIRD 83 



vocal, keeping up a persistent chorus of the tiresome chick-chick-chick 

 note, which otherwise, oddly enough, is chiefly used as a scold at owls 

 and cats. 



In the colder parts of its range the blackbird is a migrant and the 

 milder parts such as the British Isles receive considerable accessions 

 in the fall, though some of the birds are only passing through on their 

 way farther south. On the other hand, a certain number of British- 

 bred birds, especially juveniles and birds from the north of Scotland 

 and exposed places elsewhere, leave their breeding grounds and migrate 

 to the south of England or to Ireland and some few even to the Con- 

 tinent. Banding returns indicate Germany, Sweden, Norway, Den- 

 mark, Holland, and Belgium as breeding quarters of some of the 

 immigrants into Britain (Ticehurst, 1938, vol. 2). Birds from the 

 northern regions also winter in central Europe. In Germany about 

 one-third of the breeding population is stated to migrate, ranging in 

 a more or less southwesterly direction to Belgium, France, and north- 

 ern Italy. 



In hard winters, although the blackbird population may suffer 

 considerably, it is not too much to say that it invariably comes through 

 better than its relative the song thrush. This is no doubt due, at 

 least in part, to its propensity for foraging for food among dead leaves 

 in places which are less affected by frost than open ground. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — The blackbird is a Palearctic species ranging across 

 Europe and Asia and extending to northwest Africa. The range of 

 the present race extends north in the breeding season to about latitude 

 63° in Scandinavia, 61%° in Finland, the Leningrad, Kostroma, 

 Kazan, and Ufa Governments in Russia, and south to north Portugal, 

 north Spain, Italy, north Yugoslavia, Hungary, south Poland, and 

 central Russia. The winter range extends southward to central 

 Spain, the Balearic Islands, the Crimea, southeast Russia, etc. Allied 

 races are found in the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands, in 

 north Africa east to Tunisia, in Spain, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, 

 southeastern Europe, and Asia Minor with others in southern Asia. 



Spring migration. — Continental migrants in the British Isles are 

 on the move from late February to early April, and the departure 

 lasts to the end of April and even the beginning of June in the northern 

 isles (Ticehurst, 1938). A considerable passage of northern-breeding 

 blackbirds takes place in Heligoland in March and April. 



Fall migration. — The autumn immigration of blackbirds into the 

 northern isles and down both coasts of Great Britain, as well as in 

 Ireland, takes place from late September to the end of November 



