America's red-breasted thrush: strange stories about the home life of 'the one bird that everybody knows'

摘要

Peering out of a cottage window deep in the English countryside last fall, I watched a male Black-bird cock its head and pull an earthworm from the grassy lawn in the garden. The jet-black bird with its bright yellow bill and eye ring (inset) hoppeda few feet more, cocked its head again, and pulled another worm from the soil. The feeding behavior, I realized, was exactly like that of an American Robin. Actually, the European Blackbird is very much like the American Robin. The two species, which live on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, both spend much of their life on the ground, have similar alarms and songs, nest in hedges, ledges, and shrubbery, raise youngsters with spotted breasts, and migrate south in winter.