Guardian readers have responded to a letter about a blackbird with a taste for musicals, sharing their own encounters with musically inclined avian neighbours.
Beethoven's Violin Concerto
Frances Holloway from Harlesden, London, recalls pushing her husband in his wheelchair each morning while a local blackbird whistled the last movement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. 'Sadly, my husband died a few years later, the blackbird has long gone, and the tree where it sang has been chopped down, but I remember them all whenever I hear the Beethoven concerto,' she writes.
Scales and Themes
Anna Crabtree from Lewes, East Sussex, describes a blackbird that visited her Yorkshire back yard and sang the first four notes of a major scale. The following year it returned and sang the next three notes, and the year after it completed the scale. She wonders if this was random or connected to her husband, a musician working from home.
Ana Beard from Barnet, London, says her partner once whistled the Godfather theme repeatedly with windows open. A blackbird started to warble those distinctive first five notes and continued throughout the summer.
Typewriters and Pop Culture
Leslie Wilson from Reading recalls using a manual typewriter while working from home and hearing a local blackbird reproduce the carriage return 'ping' in its song. Michael Haslam from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, notes that a local blackbird 'keeps insisting that it’s a Barbie girl.'
These anecdotes highlight the remarkable mimicry abilities of blackbirds, which are known to imitate sounds from their environment, including human-made noises and musical phrases.
