Common blackbird
Turdus merula
A medium thrush: males are black with a yellow-orange bill; females are dark brown. Confirmed in Georgia as a year-round resident on the 2024 national bird checklist.
At a glance
Key facts in one look
Diet
Omnivore
Status in Georgia
Year-round resident
Size
23.5–29 cm
Habitat
Woodland / gardens
Family
Turdidae
Conservation
LC
Human interaction: It is not venomous, poisonous, or a threat to people. Wild birds must not be captured. Keep a distance from nests in hedges and garden shrubs.
Overview
What is Common blackbird
The common blackbird (Turdus merula) is a true thrush (family Turdidae) confirmed in Georgia as a year-round resident. The 2024 annotated checklist of the birds of Georgia codes it YR-R: a breeder present throughout the year. Seasonality is classed as high-quality (code A). Occurrence quality is high (H), with photographs, ringing data, and sound recordings. Adults are about 23.5–29 cm long at species level. It is not a threat to people. IUCN lists the species as Least Concern. The 2024 checklist assigns LC globally and nationally. The usual Georgian name is შავი შაშვი.
Last updated
Gallery
Common blackbird in photos
Photo: Zeynel Cebeci
Çukurova University, Adana ·
Photo: Charles J. Sharp
Souss-Massa National Park, Morocco ·
Photo: Cindy kuiphuis
Netherlands ·
Photo: Oceancetaceen
Photo: Jakub Hałun
Kraków ·
Photo: Andreas Trepte
Photo: Tony Wills
Wellington ·
Identification
How to identify Common blackbird
A thrush-sized bird. Adult males are glossy black with a yellow-orange bill and a yellow eye-ring. Females are dark brown with a duller bill. In Georgia it is a year-round resident on the 2024 checklist. The usual confusion is other thrushes, especially ring ouzel in mountain habitat.
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Length about 23.5–29 cm at species level; wingspan about 34–38.5 cm; mass commonly about 80–125 g. The bill is fairly long and straight. The tail is medium-long. Flight is often low and undulating with closed-wing dips.
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Adult males are black, with an orange-yellow bill and a yellow orbital ring. First-year males can look duller, with a darker bill and browner wings. Adult females are sooty- or chocolate-brown above, paler and mottled below, with a brownish bill. Juveniles are brown with pale spotting on the upperparts and a speckled breast.
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Ring ouzel (Turdus torquatus) is also a year-round resident in Georgia on the 2024 checklist; adult males show a clear white breast crescent and usually prefer higher, rockier or mountain habitats than garden blackbirds. Song thrush (Turdus philomelos) is smaller, brown above, with a boldly spotted pale breast — not solid black. Mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus) is larger and greyer, with bold underpart spotting. Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) is a migrant and winter visitor with a grey head and rump and chestnut back. This atlas does not yet have separate pages for those thrushes.
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It is not a threat to people. Leave it alone. A solid black garden thrush with a yellow-orange bill in Georgian towns and woodland edges is this species; a black mountain thrush with a white crescent is more likely ring ouzel.
Biology
Habitat, diet, behavior, and conservation
Habitat and range
In Georgia look for it in woodland with undergrowth, parks, gardens, orchards, and scrub — including towns. The 2024 checklist confirms country-level year-round resident status but does not publish a municipality gazetteer. Do not assume it occurs evenly across Georgia, including treeless high plateaus and arid open steppe without cover. Species-level habitat is deciduous, mixed, or partly coniferous woodland, forest edge, and well-vegetated gardens. A separate national elevation band for Georgia is not published here; in mountain regions of the wider range it can breed into montane woodland, but this page does not invent a Georgian upper limit. The atlas map stays empty until named Georgian localities are compiled from sources that list them.
Diet
There is no separate Georgian diet study on this page. Across the range it is omnivorous: earthworms, insects, snails and other invertebrates on the ground, plus berries and fruit in season. It often forages by hopping on short grass or leaf litter and pausing to listen or probe. That is species-level feeding, not a measured Georgian menu.
Behavior
It is active by day. The male’s song is a rich, fluty phrase from a high perch — roof ridge, tree top, or antenna — especially in the breeding season. Contact and alarm calls include sharp “chink” and rattling notes. In much of the milder west Palearctic the species is resident; northern birds may move south in winter. The 2024 Georgian checklist treats it as YR-R only (not coded as a separate migrant or winter visitor), so do not read Georgia as a pure passage stop on that list. Nesting is a mud-lined cup in a bush, hedge, or low tree; species-level clutches are often about three to five eggs, pale blue-green with freckles. Those figures are from the wider range, not a Georgian nest sample on this page. The checklist treats the species as a breeder in Georgia.
Conservation
BirdLife International / IUCN assess Turdus merula as Least Concern. The range and population are very large. It is not on Georgia’s 2014 Red List (Government Resolution No. 190). The 2024 Georgian bird checklist assigns global and national Red List category LC. A Georgia-specific population trend is not quantified on this page. Local pressures elsewhere include cats, window collisions, and habitat change in farmland; those are not measured here for Georgia. Do not catch or keep wild birds.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the most important questions about Common blackbird.
Yes. The 2024 annotated checklist of the birds of Georgia lists it as a confirmed year-round resident (breeder present throughout the year).
In woodland with cover, parks, gardens, orchards, and scrub — including in towns. This page has no named municipality list and does not colour the regional map. Presence is confirmed at country level, not mapped region by region here.
Males are black with a yellow-orange bill and yellow eye-ring. Females are dark brown with a duller bill. Ring ouzel has a white breast crescent. Song thrush has a spotted breast and is not solid black.
About 23.5–29 cm long at species level, with a wingspan of about 34–38.5 cm. A separate measured series from Georgia is not given on this page.
Invertebrates on the ground (worms, insects, snails) and berries or fruit in season. Diet has not been studied separately in Georgia on this page.
Year-round, according to the 2024 checklist (YR-R). Song is strongest in the breeding season, but birds may be seen in gardens and woodland in any month.
Yes. Year-round resident on the 2024 checklist means it is treated as a breeder present throughout the year.
It is harmless. It is globally Least Concern and is not on Georgia’s 2014 Red List. Do not catch wild birds.
- Budagashvili & Javakhishvili 2024 — The birds of Georgia (Sandgrouse 46)
- BirdLife DataZone — Eurasian Blackbird factsheet
- GBIF — Turdus merula (IUCN category LC via backbone)
- IOC World Bird List
- Birds of the World — Eurasian Blackbird (Collar & Christie)
- საქართველოს მთავრობის დადგენილება №190 (2014) — წითელი ნუსხა
- NPLG Wiki Dictionaries — შავი შაშვი
- Avibase — Turdus merula aterrimus
- RSPB — Blackbird
- xeno-canto XC446151 — James Ray
Species profiles are compiled from peer-reviewed literature and established biodiversity databases, and are reviewed as new taxonomic and conservation data become available.
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