When I've done the Big Garden Birdwatch over the last few years I have often seen a blackcap in my Northamptonshire garden. I hardly ever see them in the normal course of events - they seem to be a bird that takes a bit of spotting.

Male blackcap - females have brown caps.  Photo: Steve RoundAnd mostly we think of blackcaps as being summer visitors - they are warblers after all - that arrive in spring and whose songs light up the spring and summer days.

But over the last few decades blackcaps have become a lot commoner in winter - most of our wintering birds seem to be of German origin.

Here is a distribution map for blackcaps from last year's BGBW - a good spread of records but with a tendency for them to be seen towards the southwest of Britain rather than the northeast.

 

 

A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.

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