Eurasian Blackcap

Sylvia atricapilla

The Eurasian blackcap is a bird usually known simply as the blackcap. It is a common and widespread warbler. It has mainly olive-grey upperparts and pale grey underparts, and differences across the five subspecies are small. Both sexes have a neat coloured cap to the head, black in the male and reddish-brown in the female. The male's typical song is a rich musical warbling, often ending in a loud high-pitched crescendo, but a simpler song is given in some isolated areas, such as valleys in the Alps. The blackcap's closest relative is the garden warbler, which looks quite different but has a similar song. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 108,457 times across 45 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 14°C (typically 11 to 16°C, from 37 areas). That holds across 35° of latitude, which suggests its timing follows temperature more than the calendar.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.