Blackcaps

[Rita 70]

I live in N. Essex and have a pair of blackcaps visiting sunflower seed daily. Have been coming for about 2 months. Is this unusual - I thought they migrated.:)

[HRH]

Blackcaps in your garden - you are lucky, we don't get any of these. Yes Blackcaps do migrate in Sept / Oct, returning in April / May. However some European Blackcaps are now increasingly wintering in England.

[CLS]

I don't get blackcaps either. Does anybody else get anything out of the ordinary????

[Whitezombie]

Are your blackcaps on sunflower seed or sunflower hearts?
blackcaps in my garden are only interested in fat balls or peanut cake.

Rarest bird in garden to date would be redpoll, usualy a pair but have had six together. all on nijer seed or picking sunflower hearts from ground.

had 2 ring-necked parrakeets in tree but not on feeders yet.

Kev, Berkshire.

[Lu_B]

I had a heron in the garden last week (not sure if they're rare) - he wasn't very impressed our pond had no fish in it and promptly left!

Hopefully the pond will have some frogs on soon as long as the grass snake doesn't come back.:eek:

[Rita 70]

Mine are on kibbled sunflower hearts, as are the goldfinches who now ignore the niger seed most of the time
Rita 70

[CLS]

The goldfinches in my garden love hearts too. I did try them with a seed mix last autumn but they ween't having any of it so back to the hearts it was!

[Whitezombie]

Mine are on kibbled sunflower hearts, as are the goldfinches who now ignore the niger seed most of the time
Rita 70

hi Rita,

i am going to try the kibbled hearts, do the goldies drop as much as they do when the eat the whole hearts ?

[Rita 70]

Dear Whitezombie
I went over to kibbled because green & Gold finches made such a mess on the lawn and I was also afraid of mould growth and disease. Kibbled is definitely much cleaner and only damage is from beaks picking into lawn to get the few bits that drop. When I was on whole hearts there would sometimes be a pile of uneaten mush each day, although I do keep whole ones in just one feeder
as the bluetits seem to get a better grip on the whole ones with their toes. Speaking of disease I do use Arkclens on the feeders and the disinfecting powder stuff like ash whose name escapes me sprinkled on the ground

[CLS]

Do you mean Gardenklens? I keep meaning to try it. Would you recommend it?

[Rita 70]

Dear CLS
Yes Gardenclens is the powder to sprinkle on the lawn and Ark-klens is the spray I use on the perching rings and ports on my feeders every few days.
I have averaged 1 or 2 sick/dead sparrows or greenginches every couple of months (Isuspect salmonella spread by my unfavourite collared doves), but this has stopped since using the above. Still plagued by the doves though.

[CLS]

Thanks for the tip. I use Ark-klens on my feeders too but don't do anything to the lawn. I'll get some in.

Greenfinches can be a sickly bunch so anything we can do to help them has got to be worth a go.

[HRH]

Are Greenfinches really a "sickly bunch"?

[CLS]

Yes, they can be. Partly because they are so common and feed in such large numbers that statistically we will see more casualties but also because they are quite messy birds and tend to see the toilet and the kitchen as one and the same!

[Whitezombie]

Cheers for your reply Rita, a pile of mush under the feeders is my main concern, i will definatly try the kibbled hearts.

as for doves and pigeons, i give them their own supply of mixed corn, good and cheap, under a fiver for 20kilo sack.

Kev.

[Sue_B]

:) Hello, I'm new here and I haven't posted on here before.... but I love feeding and watching the birds in my garden. I have a blackcap that comes in everyday and most of the day ......sometimes on the feeder but also on the bird table...at one point I've had 3 in my garden, 2 males and a female....obviously not migrated as it has been here all winter and I live in Bury, Lancashire near Manchester. The only seed I feed them is Hi energy mix and they all love it they are like addicts I've never seen anything like it!! I'm amazed at all the differerent birds that I get. We have 4 -5 goldfinches, a goldcrest, 3 siskins, long tailed tits, plus all the normal regulars like chaffinches, greenfinches, 9 blackbirds, a kestral that scares them all away on occasion but NO I don't have a partridge in a pear tree!!!! Just thought I would let you know that I too have blackcaps :D

[Mike Sexton]

A quick comment on overwintering blackcaps. Research has shown that the birds that overwinter in the UK are migrants that have travelled nothwest from Germany and Central Europe. I don't (I think) have a reference to the original research but the paper appeared in the journal "Nature" some years ago.

Regards, Mike Sexton

[NotQuiteBlackCoot]

I don't get blackcaps either. Does anybody else get anything out of the ordinary????
Hello everyone,
This is my first post so I hope I get it right.
Sorting out bird food is far easier than getting technology to work properly!

We've had a pair of blackcaps in the garden all winter, though we see the female less than the male. He is here several times a day, and is quite bossy towards other birds. But so handsome. They take mainly suet pellets, and have the odd nibble on the little cakes I make from the CJ mix.
We did have them in the garden last winter as well, but not so often, possibly as I wasn't as adventurous with different foods as I am now.
As we have a definite pair I'm hoping they might stay to breed instead of migrating, but now the warmer weather has finally arrived they just might decide it's time to move on.

As for other unusual visitors: today I saw a Goldcrest for the first time in our garden, about 4.30 when I'd got home from work. Although we live in a rural area we're about a mile away from proper woodland so I was amazed to see this little fellow. Can't wait to add him to my garden survey for this week!

[Mike Sexton]

A further quick update ref. my last post.

When the blackcaps that have overwintered in this country return to Germany and Central Europe they have better breeding success than the birds that have migrated to Spain and Africa. This is mainly because they have the pick of territories having returned earlier than the birds that have migrated south.

Apparently, the researchers who carried out this work determined where the birds had overwintered through an analysis of their toenail clippings! So, if you are in Germany this summer and come across someone with binoculars and nail clippers – you will know what they are doing!!

I am indebted to Birdwatching Magazine for this latest snippet (sorry!) of information.

Regards, Mike Sexton

[NotQuiteBlackCoot]

:) Well they were still here this morning, those two little blackcaps(seems daft referring to the female as blackcap when she's such a red head) so they haven't left for Germany yet. Perhaps they don't want their toe nails clipping! I must remember to avoid carrying nail clippers when they're about!
All winter we've had regular visits from house sparrows, blackbirds, blue tits, coal tits, sometimes long-tailed tits, greenfinches and dunnocks. Then siskins arrived, so I got some nyger seed+ feeder out there quick. Then a song thrush turned up, collared dove, 2 wood pigeons (after flying over all winter) and this week the goldcrest. Now it's the weekend and I've got a free one so I can spend most of it watching what's happening in the garden in the daytime as well as evening. Bliss!
Also I have feeders up at a pool about a mile from where we live. Wow, there's certainly lots of birds there, which isn't surprising as it is truly rural, with the pool, of course, 3 woods within a maximun of half a mile, good hedgerows and many fields, some stubble, even. I'll check this weekend to see if any bramblings are still around. I go there every day but on work days only have time to fill feeders and put down ground food as it's on my way to work and I'm always running late. Every Saturday I swap all the feeders over. I had to get 2 of each so I can be cleaning and disinfecting one lot and leave the birds with the clean ones. This works ok, apart from the fact it made me skint!

[Ben]

Dear Whitezombie
I went over to kibbled because green & Gold finches made such a mess on the lawn and I was also afraid of mould growth and disease. Kibbled is definitely much cleaner and only damage is from beaks picking into lawn to get the few bits that drop. When I was on whole hearts there would sometimes be a pile of uneaten mush each day, although I do keep whole ones in just one feeder
as the bluetits seem to get a better grip on the whole ones with their toes. Speaking of disease I do use Arkclens on the feeders and the disinfecting powder stuff like ash whose name escapes me sprinkled on the ground

I also changed to knibbled seed because off the mess from the hearts,:( which did go mouldy if left too long on the ground.
It is also cheaper and I have no cleaning to do.

[Nikola]

i use one of the spray cleaners and it does a good job but always read the label. oh and i have had a garden warbler over wintering in the garden and at the office. could this be a sign of global warming??

[joanworley]

We have had blackcaps visiting our garden in the winter for a few years now. But this Winter our first one didn't arrive until Saturday 27th Jan. Just in time for the RSPB census!! For the first time ever, the gold finches/green finches (no siskins this year) have decided they're not going to eat the sunflower hearts, they would rather chuck them on the ground! This hasn't happened before, so I ask myself........ Could it be because they're not so desperately hungry this year and can afford to be choosy? Also for the first time this year (much later than previous years) we have been graced by several visits from a couple of long tailed tits. I also have a grey wagtail coning into our garden every day during the winter. This is the 3rd Winter we've seen him which is a bit unusual as we're not near any streams although we do have a little garden pond.