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BLACKBIRDS IN TROUBLE!
27/03/2025
Familiar to almost everyone and a joy to hear singing, it seems all is not well in blackbird land. Diseases carried by mosquitoes such as West Nile virus and Usutu flaviviruses[1] kill blackbirds. The latter zoonose has been spreading from South Africa as the climate warms, is now widespread in continental Europe and has reached the UK. The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) in London, for example, has noted a blackbird population decline as high as 40%.
The UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) began to study the mosquito-carried viruses in wild birds such as West Nile and Usutu in 2023 so that the government can respond appropriately. Although considered a lower risk because Usutu infections are generally rare and mild, there are nonetheless concerns about transmission to humans and other mammals, especially regarding West Nile virus infections in humans which can be more serious.
Once again, the anthropogenic warming of the climate is producing a potentially devastating adverse impact on wildlife. We are a nation of bird lovers and the thought of the spread of these viruses killing our blackbirds and quite probably other avifauna is shocking. The BTO (www.bto.org) notes that the blackbird “is one of our most common and familiar birds. It is particularly numerous in gardens, but can be found almost everywhere in Britain & Ireland, apart from the highest ground … It forages on the ground, and is most often seen turning over leaf litter, probing the soil for food, or visiting flat feeders like bird tables … Its “breeding numbers have increased in the UK since the mid-1990s, following a decline during the 1970s and 1980s. The UK also hosts many additional birds from northern Europe in the winter.” This last sentence is perhaps not appreciated by many of us but it explains why problems and pathogens on the continent can readily spread to the UK.
Here are a couple more images from our library – adult males and a nest © .
Betts Ecology see blackbirds on all the sites we manage and they are generally much loved by local residents. We must hope that this viral threat will not develop to a nationwide crisis but the signs are not optimistic, especially when there are internationally influential politicians who do not believe climate change is real. I am sure you know whom I mean…
