During December 2012 it seemed that there were many more male than female Blackbirds about locally. Was this true or were the females just less obvious?
By
late November 2013 there again seemed to be a preponderance of males, so time to
test the truth. During the period 4 – 21 December Blackbirds were searched for
and logged in three kinds of habitat. One was a block of urban gardens in
Haverfordwest, another pastureland bounded by trees and shrubs at Rudbaxton and
finally largely deciduous woodland at Picton. Thirty minutes was dedicated to
each visit and observations made on 19 dates, sometimes two different plots
visited on the same day. A total of 104 bird sightings were logged and of these
90 were males.
This
sample covered a minute part of the county so it would be interesting to hear
about the broader picture. Anyone sufficiently interested?