A blackcap bounty

My family had a very busy festive season, despite spending all of it at home. I am only just catching up with all the festive TV movies now. We spent many hours standing up and cooking, and many more devouring the fruits of our labour. 

But we didn’t forget our feathered friends outside. Although not a flake of snow settled in our part of the world (much to the kids' disappointment), there was some pretty inclement weather outside, and we made sure we refilled the feeders every day. And it kept things nice and busy. 

Mealworms are very popular - the mealworm feeder always empties within 20 minutes, and we’re buying them in huge sacks to try to keep up. 

The grain table and peanut feeders have brought in blue, great and coal tits, long-tailed tits, collared doves, woodpigeons and squirrels plus assorted corvids, while our robin, blackbirds and dunnocks pecked around on the ground. And gorgeous clouds of goldfinches frequent our nyjer seed feeder and teasel thicket. There’s always plenty going on. 

But over the past few weeks we’ve welcomed two new arrivals: our first greenfinch, glimpsed fleetingly at the peanut feeder, and not one but two blackcaps. 

Blackcaps breed in the UK in summer but are starting to show up in winter, too… (Photo: Paul Chesterfield, rspb-images.com)

As you’ll see in the current issue of Nature’s Home (p33), blackcaps are an unusual addition to a winter garden. So I was very excited when a male started frequenting the fat-ball feeder, and ecstatic when a red-headed female showed up a week later. 

This otherwise grey-brown warbler traditionally leaves our shores in autumn and heads south to milder climes, returning in spring to breed. However, the 2006 Big Garden Birdwatch recorded that 10% of gardens were reporting these birds in January, mainly in southern England and Wales.

Recent bird-ringing studies revealed that these are actually birds from Germany who tried to fly south but got a bit lost, and are managing to survive our winters thanks to garden feeding and our warming climate. 

We have a Mrs Blackcap, too! Easy to spot with her auburn bonnet. (Photo: Kev Chapman)

This helped me realise just how important my garden feeding is. Without me, my Mr and Mrs Blackcap might not find enough to eat, and could perish. And apparently, the study suggests that they are gradually evolving into a different sub-species from those birds that spend winter in Spain, so definitely worth hanging on to. 

So I’m ecstatic that this pair has decided to hang out with me in Wiltshire instead of jetting off to Spain. I definitely would’ve made a different decision in their shoes, but hey ho, horses for courses and all that. I’m making sure I look after them well. 

I am seriously hoping these two birds will show up during my one-hour participation in the upcoming Big Garden Birdwatch - partly for the smug-factor of uploading their sightings. I’m pulling out all the stops (ie. laying out an irresistible daily feast!) to make it happen, and I will let you know how we get on. 

Next week we’ll be sharing some more ways to make the most of the Big Garden Birdwatch - make sure you sign up and tell the world who’s pecking around in your garden! And if you see any blackcaps meanwhile, do record your sightings at Birdtrack and help UK ornithologists keep an eye on these special little warblers.