Blackcap and garden warbler (1 Viewer)

[Bubbs]

Confused? You soon will be!

 

[jogresh]

For me, its an odd Blackcap. But the BC-esque tone and quality is all there. 🙂👍🐦

 

[dantheman]

Confused? You soon will be!

I was already confused by about post 5 or 6 when it became apparent there were about 3 species of Garden Warbler out there ... (that or everyone is using different dictionaries for their definitions of words.)

 

[JayFeatherPL]

Jay,

Did you see this bird?

I didn't see the bird, but there are no garden warblers in my area.

 

[PaulCountyDurham]

I didn't see the bird, but there are no garden warblers in my area.

Fair enough, Jay.

 

[Butty]

there are no garden warblers in my area

That's not a realistic statement to make I'm afraid. It might well be that you've never knowingly seen or heard one, but that's very different from saying that one couldn't occur - even as a (singing) passing migrant. In my opinion.

 

[PaulCountyDurham]

That's not a realistic statement to make I'm afraid. It might well be that you've never knowingly seen or heard one, but that's very different from saying that one couldn't occur - even as a (singing) passing migrant. In my opinion.

Maybe the answer lies somewhere in between in that Jay doesn't see or hear Garden Warblers in his area and they're not seen or heard by other people, which was a point worth making by Jay.

Yes, there is always the possibility of a migrant but there is also the case that these birds are partially segregated by habit and where habit is suitable to both, the earlier arriving Blackcap tends to exclude the Garden Warbler.

I think it would be fair to say: unlikely but not impossible. Then again, Jay hasn't mentioned the habitat.

 

[Southern Viking]

Maybe the answer lies somewhere in between in that Jay doesn't see or hear Garden Warblers in his area and they're not seen or heard by other people, which was a point worth making by Jay.

Yes, there is always the possibility of a migrant but there is also the case that these birds are partially segregated by habit and where habit is suitable to both, the earlier arriving Blackcap tends to exclude the Garden Warbler.

I think it would be fair to say: unlikely but not impossible. Then again, Jay hasn't mentioned the habitat.

Yeah I've always thought of Blackcap as occuring practically anywhere there are bushes or trees but Garden Warbler more a bird of scrubby/bushy habitats than really wooded ones. Then again, passage birds do turn up in weird habitats.

The OP's recording sounds to me like a Blackcap "getting started" (as opposed to the quiet, subdued subsong heard sometimes in late summer when the two can be really hard to tell apart). Then again I found something last Spring that sounded a bit like a Blackcap keep repeating a portion of it's song, and when I eventually got a couple of brief views it turned out to be a Red-billed Leiothrix!

I think the thread shows that people can interpret songs in diffrent ways that are no less valid than the others though. On about 95% of the times I've been convinced I was hearing a Garden Warbler I've been proven right when I saw the bird. I'd thought of Blackcap as being more "manic" because of the swings in pitch, whereas others have described that as varied or conversational. I'd thought of Garden Warbler as being calmer because the range of pitch is lower, and others have described them as bubbling, scratchy, manic etc.

If I had to apply the word "manic" to a bird song I really thought deserving of it, it'd be Icterine Warbler!

 

[Ernest Garcia]

In the late 1970s I spent three years studying Blackcaps and Garden Warblers, in particular their interspecific territoriality. I never found the territorial songs hard to distinguish. To quote the booklet on these species that I wrote for Shire publications in 1989, "Blackcap songs usually begin slowly, with a jumble of harsh sounding notes, and end with a characteristic series of loud, pure notes. Garden Warbler songs ..... have a buzzy quality and lack the terminal flourish of pure tones". Song (phrase) lengths are very variable: they both average just over 4 seconds. However, in a very large sample from Wytham woods, Oxfordshire, Blackcaps paused for an average 6.41 seconds between phrases but Garden Warblers paused for only 3.36 seconds. This difference means that on average Garden Warblers typically have a much higher song output than Blackcaps, which is readily apparent in the field.

 

[stevo]

The opposite.
And... Blackcaps you see, garden warblers you don't.

You will see garden warbler,especially when they've first arrived after migration & setting up a territory.

 

[PaulCountyDurham]

Yeah I've always thought of Blackcap as occuring practically anywhere there are bushes or trees but Garden Warbler more a bird of scrubby/bushy habitats than really wooded ones. Then again, passage birds do turn up in weird habitats.

Aye, I knew what Jay meant in the sense his area isn't a place for Garden Warbler. I'd have said the same in that 'round here we get Blackcaps out the back but it's just not a place for Garden Warbler. I understood what Butty meant as well in that birds can turn up almost anywhere during migration but I reckon Jay meant that by and large the habitat just isn't right for them, hence: "we don't get Garden Warbler 'round here".

The OP's recording sounds to me like a Blackcap "getting started"

I agree that the bird sounds more like a Blackcap than a Garden Warbler. I still think there is an element of a recording not always sounding the same as that which you hear with your own ear.

I'd thought of Blackcap as being more "manic" because of the swings in pitch, whereas others have described that as varied or conversational. I'd thought of Garden Warbler as being calmer because the range of pitch is lower, and others have described them as bubbling, scratchy, manic etc.

Tone is a big difference for me and that there are more highs and lows with the Blackcap song whereas Garden Warbler seems more even in intensity.

'Showing my ignorance here, but I've just read that Blackcaps are adept mimics, frequently imitating other warblers; 'maybe accounts for the recording.

Speaking of Garden Warblers and Blackcaps, I go to a place mainly for Redstarts but Garden Warblers nest in a specific part of that area. There are Blackcaps not too far away but I've never heard them in the specific area where the Garden Warblers nest. I went over there mid-April and Blackcaps were in that specific area for the first time that I'm aware of (I'm talking of a disused farm with overgrown thick scrub backing onto woodland with a stream flowing through). The weather is usually awful over that way because it's North Pennines but next time we get a sunny day I'll be over there and will be interested to see if the Blackcaps have displaced the Garden Warblers in that disused farm area.