Yes Blackcaps do over winter now even as far North as N.Yorks,at first it was just the males who seemed to stay on territory but now females are stopping all year.
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can
Wendy S said: Yes Blackcaps do over winter now even as far North as N.Yorks,at first it was just the males who seemed to stay on territory but now females are stopping all year.
The Blackcaps that winter here come from eastern Europe, they're not local birds that stopped migrating. Ringing recoveries have helped show their origins. Most eastern European Blackcaps migrate to the Med and north Africa, just like our Blackcaps, but the ones that migrate to Britain instead are gradually taking over. This blog post explains in detail: http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/12/03/british-birdfeeders-split-blackcaps-into-two-genetically-dis/
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How weird! Our birds go to the Med for some winter sun along with most of the Eastern European ones, yet some of the European ones come here! Musical chairs!
EDIT you have to ask why this happens - if it is true that it is because we Brits provide such delicious food for the birds and this tempts the European ones to come over rather than cross the Alps to Spain, then why do our own birds bother to migrate?
Cheers, Linda.
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That's a fascinating read Aiki !
Thanks, Jayne.
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It's evolution in action :) A genetic mutation that makes them migrate the 'wrong' way has worked out amazingly well for them, thanks to the people in Britain who feed their garden birds. If a British-born Blackcap had the same mutation, making it migrate west-south-west, it would probably end up falling into the Atlantic!
Susan H said: How weird! Our birds go to the Med for some winter sun along with most of the Eastern European ones, yet some of the European ones come here! Musical chairs! EDIT you have to ask why this happens - if it is true that it is because we Brits provide such delicious food for the birds and this tempts the European ones to come over rather than cross the Alps to Spain, then why do our own birds bother to migrate?
Migration direction is determined genetically. Some of the eastern European ones have a genetic mutation that makes them head off in a different direction to the norm. It's just good luck that this 'wrong' migration heading brings them to us :)
All fascinating stuff.
Very interesting read! If I understand, we, humans, have played with evolution and have kind of created a form of a black cap? And if humans didn't feed entering birds, then the black cap species would have been extinct? All very interesting!
Cheers, Jason
wintering, not entering! Stupid phone lol
Aiki,according to our local group 2 males recovered last winter (early this year) were locally rung .