Blackcaps in my garden – and yours?

Mark 33 Comments
Photo: spacebirdy / CC-BY-SA-3.0 via wikimedia commons
Photo: spacebirdy / CC-BY-SA-3.0 via wikimedia commons

All records of Blackcap in my garden are winter records.

Here they are:

2005   1

2006   0

2007   0

2008   0

2009   0

2010    6

2011    0

2012   0

2013   11

2014   2

The earliest records are 27 January and the latest 7 April (3 January records, 9 February records, 6 March records, 2 April records).

Does that tell us anything interesting? I doubt it. But if your records are in Birdtrack too then maybe they will make more sense. In last month’s Birdwatch there was an interesting article (amongst many other interesting articles) on wintering Blackcaps by Mike Alibone.  Apparently Blackcap numbers peak in February in gardens – they do in mine!

Blackcap-adult_maleBut I was watching a Blackcap early on Sunday morning.  It was the only bird at our bird feeders. It visited one feeder with sunflower hearts and went to each of the four feeding holes in turn and took something (presumably a bit of sunflower heart) from each one.  It then flew to the other, more or less identical feeder, and visited three of its feeding holes in turn. At the last one it appeared to be quite lucky and pecked and swallowed three times.  It didn’t visit the fourth hole on this feeder but instead flew off into a bush and that was the last I saw of it that day.

I like Blackcaps.

 

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33 Replies to “Blackcaps in my garden – and yours?”

      1. If you are really lucky, perhaps the Blackcap will be accompanied by a Linnet!

  2. I too have a soft spot for Blackcaps, not least for spotting garden’s first whilst conducting a RSPB Birdwatch count few years ago, in part of garden not viewed from any windows. Needless to say I have’nt seen one in the garden this year yet.

  3. Morning Mark

    I too like Blackcaps. In fact on Wednesday, I took the guy who runs the recording of Wetland Trust Icklesham ringing programme up to Elmley and he saw his first Blackcap of the year in the belt of Turkey oaks and low scrub on the top fields. Not bad for someone whose world birding list is over five thousand !

    But it’s not Blackcaps that I want comment about Mark. It’s about your blog on Monday. I am an irregular reader of your blog and much regret that I have only just seen your blog of Monday (3rd March). An interesting and challeging blog where you focused specifically on me personally and on our conservation management at Elmley NNR.

    In your blog you asked a number of specific questions. Namely (1) How much was spent on conservation by NCC at Elmley in 1987? (2) What was the payment for? (3) Whether Elmley is signed up to the current agri-environment schemes? And lastly
    (4) Whether your taxes contribute to the success of breeding waders on our land?

    You might have thought that I was maintaining a dignified silence whilst others contributed comments to that blog. But I guess you know me well enough Mark to know that I don’t do dignified silence. And that if I had seen your blog,I would have banged in my comments to answer your questions straight away.

    Hence I would please like to re-open the discussion that you started on Monday. It strikes me that if you are to use the platform of your blogs to focus specifically on one person and if you are to ask specific (and quite justifiable) questions about one person’s actions in your blog, it would make sense to send them a quick email to let them know. If only to allow them (in this case me) the opportunity to answer your specific questions. Which would enable a fuller (and I hope you think better) discussion of the important issues that your raise in your blog.

    PS For sad types like me who listen to the Radio 4 farming programme every morning, it was good to hear that the tweet of the day (which always follows immediately afterwards) was the lapwing. One of my favourite birds!

    1. Philip – I’m glad we both like Blackcaps.

      You are very welcome to comment on Monday’s blog but I didn’t ask any questions. The one question mark in the blog refers to the weather.

      And I did say what a good job you had done at Elmley – that was the personal remark in the blog.

      1. Mark You should go into politics. That rebuttal looks a bit disingenuous, is that the right word?
        I read your blog and it did look like the usual knocking shop – cor look they got £1.6million.
        Yes you did say they were doing a great job ..but it looked like you were questioning the funding.
        Bladkcap came last winter in the snow and sneaked round eating apples and ignoring the sunflower feeder and sheddings from same.

        1. andrew – I’m never quite sure what disingenuous means although I hear people using it a lot. So I’ve just looked it up – not candid, or insincere. It would be odd to make an insincere rebuttal, but just like my blog didn’t ask any questions, my reply to Philip wasn’t a rebuttal. £1.6m is still quite a lot of money and it was even more all those years ago.

          I suggest that comments about Elmley, if there are any more, are best placed as comments on the blog about Elmley rather than on this one about Blackcaps!

  4. Mark,

    I assume that the numbers of blackcaps quoted are ‘blackcap days’ ( since I don’t imagine that you had 11 individuals on one day!)

    There are 2 male blackcaps in my garden, one daily and another when it is not seen off by the other ( dominant) bird. One was singing in a hesitant sort of way a couple of days ago, the earliest I have heard a blackcap sing. Last year provided the latest date that I had recorded for blackcap song.

    1. Trevor – yes Blackcap days – we do not often see flocks of Blackcaps here in east Northamptonshire. I’ve once seen two males together but all the others are single birds. I don’t recall hearing them sing at all. Several yeaqrs ago there was a singing Blackcap a few gardens away, but that is, as best I can recall, the only singing in my neighbourhood. They ought to feel a bit motivated to sing on these warm somewhat springlike days.

  5. In the last 5 winter’s we have had a Blackcap in the garden for 3 of them including this winter. Often seen foraging and not visiting the feeders.

    1. Lorraine – maybe if I looked harder I’d see them more often in my garden but it is usually as they approach the feeders, or are on them, that I see them. They (or perhaps the one male I keep seeing is the same one each time) are quite keen on the feeders.

  6. Never had a Blackcap in my Yorkshire Dales garden. Not too surprising considering its deep inland, and probably more relevant, upland, at 250mtr a.s.l

    1. Steven – yes, I guess that would make it a tough place for a Blackcap in winter.

    2. We are also 250m above sea level in Gloucestershire and do get the occasional Blackcap in winter although we have had none this year. We cut apples in half and impale them on twigs near our seed feeders – when present the Blackcaps seem to visit these quite often.

      Are not the winter BCs of a different sub-species to the ones that we see during the breeding season?

      1. Tony – interesting, thank you.

        Wintering Blackcaps are the same subspecies but do come to the UK from Central Europe – ‘our’ Blackcaps go to north Africa (mostly) for the winter.

  7. I like Blackcaps too Mark. When we lived in the Wye Valley a pair nested in our garden. The male’s song was the background to our summer.

      1. It is Mark. Every year I think I have mastered it, and that of the Garden Warbler, but there is always the odd bird that trips me up!

        1. Ed – same here! The first Garden Warbler of the year must be seen not just heard. I’m rarely wrong with that but, somehow, it seems as though as the season progresses they are slightly more difficult to tell apart.

    1. Heather – thank you. Yes Garden Birdwatch shows us quite a lot about Blackcaps. It has always required too much effort for me and I’m too mean to pay £17 a year to provide data to anyone!

      The graph is fascinating – they always are! As my blog stated – all my Blackcap records are after Christmas but that isn’t generally true. I’ll have to look harder next December.

  9. It is Mark. Every year I think I have mastered it, and that of the Garden Warbler, but there is always the odd bird that trips me up!

    1. The sound files I have for Blackcap and Garden Warbler are the ones I listen to every spring, more than any other. Like everyone else, I often think I’ve “got it”, only to be disappointed when the next time when I hear some song, and then see the “wrong” species.

  10. In 16 years of GBW participation (don’t work out the cost Mark!) we have recorded 43 visits by Blackcaps. Only two of those were winter visitors (2010,2012) the remainder in summer with one singing for nine consecutive weeks last year.

    I think we don’t get them in winter as we’re in a rural village and in a bit of a frost pocket. Do they favour the extra warmth of an urban environment do you think?

  11. Mark, no Blackcaps for us this year, but that’s what I deserve for moving to 59 degrees North and buying half an acre of mud. Shrub planting will be a priority, as there have been reports of Blackcaps on the island. I recall that they were always feisty at the feeders, defending the bird table or fat block against all comers until the Starlings arrived. I wish you a seamless transition from Winter visitors to singing Spring arrivals. Blackcaps are sweet on the ear.

  12. It’s interesting to read what the recently published BTO Atlas has to say about Blackcaps. Namely that they are an adaptable species and are colonising other areas – a bit like farmers managing nature reserves perhaps.

    For those who might be interested and as a prompt to you Mark, I have just posted a lengthy comment on your Monday blog. It follows on from my earlier comment above. Thanks.

  13. Not this winter, which is unusual for here (North London) I’m guessing this is in part down to the mildness of 2013/14. Often they appear either side of Christmas immediately after a cold snap. Why do we all see so many males? Or rather, so few females? I check disappearing Dunnocks daily so it isn’t a lack of effort. . by the way the trick with Garden Warblers (in full song at least) is to listen out for the repeated “weetoo weetoo”

  14. Hi there, We live in Cambridge and are lucky enough to have had blackcaps wintering in our garden for the last few years. This year, I have only seen the female, and twice now I have stood under a tree and watched her sing – yes, really. I am rather confused to be honest as I thought only the males sang. Does anyone have any experience of other female blackcaps singing in winter? I wonder if it’s a territory thing, given the recent thinking that these are migrant birds, spending the summer in Germany and the winter in Eastern England?

    Any help would be much appreciated.

    Sue

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