Blackbird singing in the dead of day!

We have a resident Blackbird couple who have been piping all yesterday and intermitantly today. The first fifteen minutes, it started to annoy me but by four o'clock yesterday it was going right through me. I could have dearly strangled both of them. It sounds like two bits of pipe being banged together, high pitched.
They are protecting a nest and making a bloody racket doing so. No wonder the cats get ticked off with them and want to kill them.

We had the sliding doors open and it seemed to get really noisey at one point. I went and shut the door only to find the rowdy thing parked on the post at the end of the deck. No wonder it got louder!

I bet if it was a Blackbird singing in the dead of night, it was no wonder Paul MacCartney was awake to hear it!

I tried to have a nap at one point and ended up with a blanket piled on my ear just to try and shut out the sound. I think about 5:30, they finally went off to their nest and shut up.... until this morning [}]

I'll be happy when their young have left the nest and they can quit their vigil.

Yakut

Aww now now Yakut! Calm thoughts....calm thoughts!

Ha yeah right MM Kim said I was making too much of it..... until it finally got to her too. She said she was just glad we had birds around but by yesterday afternoon it was working on her last nerve as well. The relative quiet after they settled for the night was bliss. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't have been guarding their abode so close to the house.

Kim got her camera out and took a few photos of it and surprisingly enough, she managed to get a few shots with its beak closed!

Duct tape was firmly in my thoughts! [}]
It was one note, continuous, loud and was flicking it's tail feathers and giving little flutters with its wings as it piped.

My late cat Nako was chased by a little flock of them in Christchurch. He must have been bothering them and they ganged up on him.
I saw him streaking around the side of the house around to the back door with a group of about five birds screeching and dive bombing him in turn. He shot through the back door and skidded to a halt.
He then parked himself and quietly started cleaning his feet and whiskers while the birds went back to whatever they'd been doing.

Yakut

Move the nest.

Kim had that very thought but couldn't find it. The two trees in the back yard are chocka with nests. One group of nests seem to spiral up the trunk near the top of the tree. There is one rather fabulous palace at the top of the other tree. It's been made with hay and I wouldn't be surprised if it was lined with some Dodie fluff and some goat fluff.

The Pittosporum hedge is literally fluttering with birds. No doubt they have also been harvesting the fluff I've pulled out of the grooming brush. I was gathering up all the fluff and stuffing it in a gap in the boards in the loading ramp and it was being plucked away every day.

I just hope this wind doesn't loosen up the nests.

Yakut

I can sympathise with you, I loved my Guinea fowl until one afternoon they drive us mad with their constant noise!

They got rehomed very soon after!

Better keep an eye on it if it frequents the deck. We have a couple who come inside because they know the catfood is there. Very annoying if I don't hear them in time as they grab a Biscat or two and fly off into the bedrooms. then there is a mess to clean up. we keep the back door closed all the time now.

I have a lot of sympathy for you Yakut. We have a nest in our carport at the moment, and mum and bubs sound like a cross between a stone stuck in the wheel of your car, and a power-steering belt on it's last legs. You know that screechy sound that makes your skin crawl?

Luckily for them I like birds.. and also that my truck is currently making the same sounds but I can blame it on them, hehe

They were back at it the next day but not quite so persistant.... until about 7pm when they really went to town on it.

Then yesterday I spotted a likely suspect for their panic. Tree! The blackbirds were going nuts in the pittosporum hedge and lo and behold, who should come across to the deck from that very direction? Tree, if cats had a thought bubble over their head it would have had an image of a lioness stalking across the veldt.
She's a legend in her own mind that one.
She carried her head level with her body. She placed each paw in long precise steps, her tail followed with a meaningful, slow, swish as she walked back to the porch through the stringy grass.
Oh yes, 'The Lion Queen'.

The fact that I was giving her an earful and telling her to "leave those bloody birds alone and get inside" had no effect on the image she held of herself.
Meanwhile, back in the hedge, the blackbirds were still venting their spleen.

Cheers Tree!

Yakut