5 things you might not know about the blackcap

2 min read
5 things you might not know about the blackcap

Blackcaps are little warblers with a beautiful fluting song, and they have started spending winter in our gardens. I love watching them in our garden in winter, and I miss them in the summer. Here are five things that might surprise you.

1. About 95% of winter blackcaps are in gardens

Around 95% of the blackcaps that winter in Britain are found in gardens. Most come from France, with others from Spain and Poland. The direction a blackcap flies in is genetically determined, based on experiments with birds from either side of a migratory divide.

2. The males build decoy homes

A male builds one or more starter nests, called cock nests, near his songposts, and the female builds the final nest. Males sometimes sing while incubating, especially during the second brood.

3. One female laid twenty-three eggs in a season

In one rare triple brood, a female laid twenty-three eggs in a single season. A blackcap normally weighs sixteen to twenty-five grams, but they can reach thirty-one grams before migration.

4. They plant mistletoe

Around July, the blackcap's diet shifts towards fruit, which provides sugar for fattening before migration. The birds squeeze seeds out on a branch before eating the pulp, which makes them an important disperser of mistletoe.

5. One bird survived a winter on Christmas cake

One garden blackcap survived an entire winter eating only Christmas cake. In another study, cotoneaster made up 41% of the fruit eaten by British garden birds.

A little blackcap folklore

The blackcap has been called the mock nightingale and the country nightingale because of its song, and older texts called it nettlecreeper or blackbonnet. Their collective noun is a confusion.

In Cyprus, blackcaps were once hunted in large numbers and served as a delicacy, often trapped illegally with limesticks and mist nets. The practice is now banned, but still persists in some areas. According to Cypriot folklore, migrating blackcaps are carried in on the backs of storks each year.

What blackcaps like to eat, and where

Blackcaps are particularly fond of the suet pellets in our seasonal bird food, and once a blackcap finds a reliable feeder it becomes a regular. Offer it in a Little Lantern seed feeder, and plant cotoneaster for them in winter. If you are not sure which feeder suits your garden, our feeding quiz will point you in the right direction.

Want to keep track of the blackcaps in your garden? Amidst the Birdsong: A Garden Birdwatcher's Journal is made for exactly that.

Want to read about more garden birds? See all the birds in this series.

While you're here

Because there's always something worth knowing about the birds in your garden.
Clare Cahill

Thank you for reading!

Clare Cahill is a bird enthusiast with a passion for observing and learning. While she definitely doesn’t have a formal degree in ornithology, Clare has dedicated hours to reading birding books and exploring nature, constantly expanding her knowledge and deepening her love for wildlife.

For Clare, birdwatching brings a sense of calm and connection to the world, offering a peaceful escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. She believes that the more we connect with nature, the more we can do to protect and conserve it. Through her writing, Clare hopes to inspire others to take a moment to pause, look up, and appreciate the calm and connection that comes from letting a little wildness into our everyday lives.

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