Eurasian blackcap and garden warbler (1 Viewer)

[JayFeatherPL]

How to distinguish eurasian blackcap from garden warbler? I heard that blackcap has longer pauses between phrases and blackcap has a low "opening" to it's song. I also heared that garden warbler sings a bit faster. Is it true, or are there another methods of distinguishing these two birds?

 

[01101001]

Interesting question, thanks.

EDIT: Here are some links, but, while I don't think that they exhaust the topic, they might be interesting, nevertheless. Like you, I'm waiting for other answers.

Part 5: Hamish taught me all he knows about bird sounds - The Sound Approach

soundapproach.co.uk

6 - Which came first? - The Sound Approach

soundapproach.co.uk

Blackcap song

Birdsong has been a fascination for me from an early age and back in about 1979/80 I made an effort to learn a lot of British bird songs from cassette recordings and subsequently went out and applied what I learned in the field. My favourite bird book of the last twenty years has been the first...

www.birdforum.net

 

[jurek]

In Poland it is relatively easy, because Blackcap has deeper, fluting voice, and usually ends with a fluting passage going slowly up, quick down, slowly up, quick down. Blackcap song differs less in some other parts of Europe.

 

[Butty]

Garden warbler is faster and goes on longer. By and large.
After you've suspected one on account of the above, try and see it. Then you hit another characteristic feature, because they skulk more.

 

[01101001]

In Poland it is relatively easy, because Blackcap has deeper, fluting voice, and usually ends with a fluting passage going slowly up, quick down, slowly up, quick down. Blackcap song differs less in some other parts of Europe.

Lacking experience (and context) myself, I can't square it with some of the below:

A few of my experts joined Percy and Lars and identified the Blackcap songs by timbre. “Garden Warbler has a mellower, blackbird-like timbre” said Magnus for example. Others used pitch: “Garden Warbler constantly drops into the lower notes while Blackcap reaches for the higher”, but most used the length of the song “Garden Warbler sings appreciably longer songs than Blackcap”. One thing I noticed in probing was that Scandinavian birders did not see the Blackcap/Garden Warbler conundrum as much of a challenge at all.

 

[jurek]

I can only advise to try which of these characteristics work best for you yourself.

Blackcap songs are variable in Europe, rather more than most birds, and Polish ones are easier for me. West European birds don't have this ending. BTW if you can get hands on the ancient Polish book ABC rozpoznawania ptakow - square format, with Whinchat on the cover - it contains by far the longest and best advice to ID common birds by song.

 

[01101001]

It must be either ABC obserwatora ptaków | Jan Lontkowski, Tadeusz Stawarczyk or https://allegro.pl/oferta/jaki-to-p...bi_s=archiwum_allegro&bi_c=Product&bi_m=reco&, then.

EDIT: By the way, I think you mean the joyful 'TOO-too-EE-TI too-UH' (I'll try to upload a recording soon).

 

[01101001]

By the way, I think you mean the joyful 'TOO-too-EE-TI too-UH'

This phrase--more or less warbling, slower or faster, clearer or more jumbled, and not always at the end of the phrase--was present in all five of Merlin's recordings for Blackcap (two from Spain and three from Belgium, ranging from March to June), which makes me wonder whether it's an innate, distinctive fragment of its song throughout its range?

Sometimes I'm waiting for the 'and there it is' moment 'just a Blackcap.

(EDIT: Try whistling the phrase yourselves by the description to better understand what I mean.)

 

[jurek]

Xeno-canto.org is much better than Merlin. It has over 250 of recordings of Blackcap from Poland.
XC549852 Eurasian Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) - has only this motif
XC120946 Eurasian Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) - has the motif twice, at 0:02 and 0:13

If you are interested, Blackcaps in Switzerland don't have this motif, or not a clear one, but have a different motif which in Poland I would associate with Common Redstart singing.

The book: my mistake, I mean Z lornetką wśród ptaków Z lornetką wśród ptaków | Jerzy Gotzman . ABC obserwatora ptaków has of course, super-funny cartoons by Michał Skakuj, but tells little about bird songs.

 

[Butty]

Blackcaps in Switzerland don't have this motif, or not a clear one, but have a different motif which in Poland I would associate with Common Redstart singing

Are you really sure about this? - rather than it just being based on your own local experiences? I can walk ½ km through blackcap habitat and hear ½ a dozen different blackcaps each singing a song different from the others.

 

[Sangahyando]

Xeno-canto.org is much better than Merlin. It has over 250 of recordings of Blackcap from Poland.
XC549852 Eurasian Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) - has only this motif
XC120946 Eurasian Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) - has the motif twice, at 0:02 and 0:13

If you are interested, Blackcaps in Switzerland don't have this motif, or not a clear one, but have a different motif which in Poland I would associate with Common Redstart singing.

The Polish examples you've listed (as well as other Polish samples of the species on XC) sound a lot like the ones you'd hear in Germany, to be honest. I don't remember what they sound like in every country I've seen/heard them in, but in my experience it varies more by individual than by country (smaller regions might be a different story). Or at least I've found it relatively easy to identify this species by its song in every region I remember encountering it.

 

[PaulCountyDurham]

How to distinguish eurasian blackcap from garden warbler? I heard that blackcap has longer pauses between phrases and blackcap has a low "opening" to it's song. I also heared that garden warbler sings a bit faster. Is it true, or are there another methods of distinguishing these two birds?

The tone is different. Blackcap flutey. Garden Warbler: you can hear a bit of the Blackcap in him but also the scratchy warblers in him.

Personally, I think it's very easy to tell them apart in song.