Blackbirds - Guardians of the In-between.

I absolutely love the blackbirds in my garden.

Not just because they’re incredibly beautiful, but because once you open yourself to their energy, you realise just how special they are.

Blackbirds are guardians of the in-between.  They live on the threshold. They walk the soil and sing from the sky. They are most active at dawn and at dusk.

And sometimes, in the quiet, luminous hours - they sing into the night. Just like the Bettles song says.

That part always gets me.

It's so symbolic.

Blackbirds are one of the very few garden birds who do this.

When the world is still, when the air carries sound further, they lift their voices into the dark night. Reminding us of another truth. That even in the darkest places, beauty or light is still present too. Running right alongside the darkness. We just need to have the courage to look for it. To sing it into being. Blackbirds whisper to us that darkness is not emptiness… it is fertility, rest, gestation, and becoming.

Which is why blackbirds, cloaked in the colours of soil, night, and seed - have always been seen not as omens of death, but as guardians of transformation.

They sing from the dark, because the dark is where the next thing is forming. 

Singing when others are silent.

Holding space when everything else is quiet.

That’s very blackbird.

If you've ever watched a Blackbird feeding, you’ll see something extraordinary. They tilt their heads, one ear to the ground, one eye on the world, and then suddenly, stab their beak into the ground and pull up a worm from the earth. They first time I watched them do it, my spirit whispered that they hear what can't be heard. 

They aren’t guessing.

They’re listening.

They hear the subtle movements beneath the soil, the quiet shifting of life underground.

The earth speaks to them, and they answer.

And that feels like their deeper gift too - a reminder that what we need is often hidden below the surface, and that true knowing comes from stillness and listening.

I couldn't help but notice that even in this torrential rain we have just had, they still came to bathe in my bird bath. I've carefully set it up so I can watch them from many rooms in my house. I love watching then bathe. They make it look so joyous.

So I'm learning that they bathe not because they want to get wet, but because rain is chaos, and bathing for them is restoration. In still water they realign their feathers, redistribute their oils, and bring themselves back into balance.

And I think that’s what they offer us too.

Blackbirds don’t belong to endings the way crows do.

They belong to crossings - the place between who we were and who we’re becoming. They appear when something is shifting, softening, healing, or being born. Their spirit brings balance to times of transition.

So when a blackbird sings near you, especially in the hush of evening or the mystery of night, or lives in your garden, or looks at you with those dark, ancient eyes - know that you’re standing in a thin place, where nature and spirit quietly meet.

Because blackbirds don’t just live anywhere. Blackbirds choose places where: Water is clean, land is respected, no one is hunted or chased and there is space for their rituals.

They do not settle in chaotic, hostile energy.

If blackbirds have chosen to live with you - your garden may have become a thin place - a place where life and spirit quietly overlap.

And blackbirds? They are the ones who keep watch. 

And that, to me, is a kind of magic we don’t talk about nearly enough. 

 

Love Kim

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