Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla)


The blackcap is essentially a summer visitor to Britain arriving in spring after a long journey from Africa where it spends the winter. Its warbling song can be heard from trees and tall hedgerow shrubs from mid April onwards into May and possibly early June but once a territory is established, a nest built and young birds have hatched and need feeding the singing stops. 

The birds that nested here in Britain leave for Africa with their young ones but are then replaced by birds that nested much further north, often in Scandinavia and northern Europe. The bulk of these birds will then almost certainly move on further south when the harder weather hits us early in the new year and it can often occur on garden bird feeders in here on the south coast in January and February. 

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