It is the bird that confers glory and majesty on suburbia. Every year, the sound of the blackbird brings joy to the houses with gardens that encircle every city in Britain, elevating the humblest cottage to the status of Highgrove.
We are all familiar with the blackbird’s song, even if we can’t identify it: a laid-back fluting, as if a man was standing on the roof, leaning against the chimney pot with his hands in his pockets, idly whistling away the mellow early evening.
But all is not well with this ‘ouzel cock so black of hue with orange tawny bill’, as Bottom sings in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Martin Wise recently wrote to this newspaper from Clacton in Essex: ‘Where have all the blackbirds gone?’ Adding: ‘None this year, and even on local walks, I haven’t managed to spot any. Have other readers noticed this?’
They certainly had. No fewer than 16 responded, a number indicative of much broader interest – saying that they too had noticed their absence.
There is clearly a problem here. It’s called the Usutu virus and it’s carried by mosquitoes. While they do bite mammals such as dogs, horses and humans – who sometimes get a mild fever – the mosquitoes largely target birds. But while species such as sparrows and magpies tend to recover from a bout of Usutu virus, it’s fatal to blackbirds.
The symptoms are weakness, lethargy and loss of coordination: enough to stop a bird from feeding efficiently and so hurrying it towards death.
The virus was first identified in 1959, when it was discovered near the Usutu River in South Africa. It turned up in mainland Europe in 1996, when it started killing blackbirds in Italy.
Since then it has moved northwards and has been associated with other blackbird die-offs. It was first noticed in London in 2020, when blackbird numbers in the capital fell a precipitous 50 per cent in 12 months. The population recovered somewhat but in 2024 it was still about 32 per cent lower than in 2019.
Greater London remains the area most seriously affected by the Usutu virus but it has spread throughout southern England, as far west as Dorset, and as far north as Cambridgeshire.
This development is all the more serious because the blackbird population was already in decline. According the British Trust for Ornithology, it fell 20 per cent between 1963 and 2023 because of factors including habitat loss.
It’s a particularly remarkable statistic because the blackbird is nothing if not resilient.
While mankind has made massive changes to the landscape of this nation, blackbirds have mostly taken them in their stride.
Originally, they were probably birds of the deep forest, nesting in the oak woods that covered so much of lowland Britain before humans got round to felling them.
Their dark colouring and low-frequency song are ideal for thick woodland. It’s a combination that enables many bird species to thrive in tropical rainforest to this day.
But as humans came together in agricultural communities and then green-fringed cities, blackbirds adapted.
The British Trust for Ornithology says that the number of blackbirds in the UK fell 20 per cent between 1963 and 2023 because of factors including habitat loss, writes Simon Barnes
They are versatile and intelligent feeders – it’s not just berries and worms for them, they’ve been found eating frogs, newts, snakes and even catching small fish.
It’s as if they had spent countless geological ages waiting for suburban gardens and parks to be created for their own special use. They have developed alongside humans and their works and, as a result, they have earned a special place in human culture.
You don’t have to be a bird watcher to notice blackbirds and have a special affection for them.
Along with robins, they are the garden birds everyone can recognise. Well, the male of the species is. Blackbirds are strongly sexually dimorphic – that is to say, the females look like a completely different species – but the male, with his banana-bright beak and sleek black feathers, is known to us all.
The blackbird is celebrated, of course, in the nursery rhyme Sing A Song Of Sixpence, which tells the story of the ancient tradition of the surprise pie.
In a prank to make the king jump, live birds – or mice, or even snakes – were placed under a lid of pastry and which was then opened. Hence the line about ‘four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie’.
In fact, blackbirds were trapped, killed and plucked – and the breast and leg meat cooked – for years. Indeed, we were eating blackbirds until the end of the 1940s.
Mosquitoes carry the Usutu virus, which attacks mammals and birds. But while species such as sparrows and magpies tend to recover from a bout of the virus, it’s fatal to blackbirds
At this time of year, we still sing about blackbirds. In The Twelve Days of Christmas, the ‘four calling birds’ are actually colly birds: coal-black birds, or blackbirds.
The species has been celebrated in more lofty verses: Thomas Hardy praised the bird’s ‘crocus-coloured bill’. (The yellow crocus is more a harbinger of spring than its purple and white counterparts.)
The Beatles included the sound of real blackbird song in their hit about the civil rights movement, Blackbird.
But the best blackbird music was composed – in fact, to a considerable extent transcribed – by 20th-century French musician and ornithologist Olivier Messiaen. Listen to Le Merle Noir, French for ‘blackbird’, on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean.
All this is under threat from the Usutu virus. So how did it get here?
Simple enough: mosquitoes carry the virus and we’re making a happier world for mosquitoes. Warmer weather, longer summers and heavier rains create lovely conditions for them and the species that carry Usutu virus have moved north with the changing climate.
Donald Trump once said climate science was ‘the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world’. A dying blackbird in Essex might take issue with him there.
Can we do anything about this? Well yes, actually. Cut down on standing water. Example: if you leave a wheelbarrow out in a rainstorm, you’ve created a perfect breeding place for mosquitoes, so prop it against a wall so it doesn’t collect water.
There’s a lovely story about the 7th-century St Kevin of Ireland. He was praying with one hand ecstatically raised towards Heaven and didn’t even notice when a blackbird had laid her eggs in his open palm
Self-interest as well as a love of blackbirds makes that a good idea. Ponds are OK because they also attract the natural predators of mosquitoes.
If you have a bird-bath, clean it regularly and fill it with fresh water. If you have a bird-feeding station, keep it clean.
We should all support conservation organisations such as the RSPB and your local county wildlife trust; even London has one.
There’s a lovely story about the 7th-century St Kevin of Ireland. He was praying with one hand ecstatically raised towards Heaven and didn’t even notice when a blackbird had laid her eggs in his open palm.
St Kev was untroubled: he merely kept his hand up until the eggs had hatched and the resulting brood had been raised.
And that’s precisely how all nature exists in the world today: it’s in our hands.
Only right and wise choices will make it possible to leave a planet on which our great-great grandchildren can thrive and find joy.
- Simon Barnes is the author of a number of books about the natural world, including Spring Is The Only Season
