Bird Sightings: Blackcap

thewesternisles.co.uk

Wildlife Forum NEW Hebrides bird sightings Bird pictures A - Z Bird pictures: thumbnails Bird ringing Seal and dolphin rescue Difference dolphin porpoise Seal pups Bottlenose dolphin A dolphin rescue BDMLR

Overview Flowering now A - Z wildflowers White wildflowers Yellow wildflowers Pink wildflowers Purple - blue flowers Orchid notes

Stornoway Arch Project May garden

Websites directory Featured sites: Hebridean Baskets Artist Wille Fulton Boreas Knitwear Stornoway Arch Project

Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Blackcap

Blackcap

Sylvia atricapapilla

Gaelic: Ceann-dubh

Photograph © Grahame Thompson
Aiginish - Isle of Lewis - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
October, 2004

Grahame is one of two British Ornithological Society ringers on the island, he does the East side. His usual areas are the Castle Grounds and Aiginish, plus a whole heap of other sites depending on time of year and species!

Blackcap

Scarce Passage Migrant

The blackcap has a life span of up to 10 years.

Stocky in shape, and at a size of about 15cm, the blackcap is one of our larger warblers. It is about the same size as a sparrow, and with it's grey plumage is often mistaken for one by beginner bird watchers.

The blackcap is often found choosing the company of sparrows, although if you watch them together for a while it sometimes becomes apparent that it is not always a mutual choice.

The distinguishing feature of the black cap is the cap which gives the bird it's name.

The male black cap has a small black cap, the female a small chestnut-red ca, and the juvenile bird a small ginger-chestnut cap.

The cap seems to be set tilting forward at a rather rakish angle, it comes down to the top of the eyes at the front, leaving the face and the back of the neck grey.

The male black cap has grey-brown upper parts, and light olive-grey underparts.

The underparts of the female are more buff-coloured.

Male and female blackcaps have grey faces and pale bluish-grey bill and legs.

There are approximately 590,000 breeding pairs of blackcaps in the UK in summer. They arrive in April and May, choosing to nest in broad-leaved woodland, and other places where there is dense undergrowth. Blackcaps nest in the lower branches of shrubs, and there they lay 4 - 6 eggs.

In winter we have about 3000 blackcaps in the UK, most of the resident birds are in the South and West of England, some of those 3000 birds have come from Germany and North East Europe to over winter.

When the blackcaps leave the UK in September and October they go to Southern Europe and North Africa to over winter where there are large numbers of resident blackcaps.

We get a few blackcaps visit us in the Western Isles each year, mostly in October and November.

A warbler, the blackcap has the pointed bill of an insect-eater, they constitute it's diet in the summer, but in winter the blackcap will also eat berries when most of the insects are dormant, which makes it a hardy little bird.

The voice is a "teck", a tongue clicking sound, and the melodious warble that is it's song, has earned the blackcap the name "The Northern Nightingale".

Active and alert by nature, rather shy and elusive, often disappearing into dense undergrowth except when singing.

Tag line "I think I saw one ..."

Other local bird photographs

back to page top

Home • Contact Webmaster • Advertising