Q: When is a blackbird not a blackbird?
A: When it's a Chinese blackbird.

Chinese blackbirds arrive in Hong Kong every autumn and stay over winter until around March. There is a lot of disagreement about whether this is the same species as the European blackbird.

Arguments for same species: They look almost identical. It's true that in Europe the male is black and the female dark brown, and both sexes are black here, but all the body measurements are the same (see photos below, all of males taken in Europe).

Arguments for different species: They behave in a totally different way. Instead of hopping around in the open on lawns etc like they do in England, they skulk around in small parties of around 7 or 8, spending most of the time in the trees, or hidden poking around in leaf litter beneath. They sound totally different. instead of the familar tuneful song (listen to The Beatles "Blackbird singing in the dead of night" for a sample) they have a single weak piping note. And they don't exhibit the sexual dimorphism (different colours) of the European bird. And besides, if they are a different species I'll have one more tick for my Life List (sad).

So whether they are different species, or sifferent sub-species, they are around on Lamma at the moment. Look our for small parties flying around.

<img src="http://www.compunicate.com/Lamma/27/Blackbird.jpg" border=1>
<img src="http://www.compunicate.com/Lamma/27/Blackbird2.jpg" border=1>
<img src="http://www.compunicate.com/Lamma/27/Blackbird3.jpg" border=1>

Where are the photos? They don't appear to be linked.

What happens is that I send Lammagung the pictures, and he loads them into the message, usually within a few hours. So if you see soimething like <pics here>L it is a temporary message, and they will soon be up.

I know the world is getting impatient, please just hold on for a couple more hours!

.

Sheesh! People are getting so impatient these days! What's happening to our tranquil & laid-back paradise? Fai-dee-lah!

The pictures are up now, a few hours late as I'm working day and night on the Dec Lamma-zine right now...

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Yep! that is a blackbird alright and the third one is a legless blackbird.

I think Poppet was just trying to be helpful, pointing out that maybe I had forgotten to connect a link properly. With my lack of knowledge in the cyberspace area, that would be the most probable explanation.

Next time I'll put something like <pics loading soon>

You're right - I wrongly assumed that it was a broken link. Nice photos and worth the wait!