"Spider" wrote in message
...
I saw an interesting blackbird perched on my Exochorda earlier. It
was a
male, being totally black, had a yellow beak but no yellow eye ring.

I had always understood that the British black bird was black with
yellow
beak and eye ring and that the european blackbird was also black, but
with
brown beak and no discernible eye ring.

Have I always got this wrong, or could British and european blackbirds
be
cross-breeding? .... or another explanation.

Spider

Spider,

This site http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/birds/blackbird.htm expains it
all.

Regards,
Emrys Davies.