The Scolding Blackbird
When a blackbird scolds it seems to get into a sort of frenzy, and the-sound can become annoying. Usually the bird's anger or alarm is caused by a cat, and often it is at a time when the young are fledged and in danger while hopping on the ground. Listening to the bird, I went over tothe. hedge and peered through the bushes to see what was wrong. The blackbird was unaware that I was close, and continued to scold until his fluttering and bouncing in the branches brought him right to me, and he burst out with an even louder alarm and went off to some laurels across the way._ I- could imagine how his heart was beating. No cat was in the hedge, but as I turned I caught sight of a stoat that scuttled over the road. There was a nest somewhere at hand. Whether the young were so far advanced as to be accessible to the stoat, who isn't given to climbing, I could not say, but I went off convinced that the stoat had not gone for good and the blackbird's scolding would be resumed, with or without the effect of saving the young.
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