The Eurasian blackcap (''Sylvia atricapilla''), usually known simply as the blackcap, is a common and widespread
typical warbler
The typical warblers are small birds belonging to the genus ''Sylvia'' in the "Old World warbler" (or sylviid warbler) family (biology), family Sylviidae.Del Hoyo, J.; Elliot, A., & Christie, D. (editors). (2006). ''Handbook of the Birds of the ...
. It has mainly olive-grey upperparts and pale grey underparts, and differences between the five
subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
are small. Both sexes have a neat coloured cap to the head, black in the male and reddish-brown in the female. The male's typical song is a rich musical warbling, often ending in a loud high-pitched crescendo, but a simpler song is given in some isolated areas, such as valleys in the
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
. The blackcap's closest relative is the
garden warbler
The garden warbler (''Sylvia borin'') is a common and widespread small bird that breeds in most of Europe and in the Palearctic to western Siberia. It is a plain, long-winged and long-tailed typical warbler with brown upperparts and dull white ...
, which looks quite different but has a similar song.
The blackcap breeds in much of Europe, western Asia and northwestern Africa, and its preferred habitat is mature
deciduous
In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...
woodland. The male holds a territory when breeding, which is defended against garden warblers as well as other blackcaps. The nest is a neat cup, built low in
bramble
A bramble is any rough, tangled, prickly shrub, usually in the genus ''Rubus'', which grows blackberries, raspberries, or dewberries. "Bramble" is also used to describe other prickly shrubs, such as roses (''Rosa'' species). The fruits inclu ...
s or scrub, and the
clutch
A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages power transmission, especially from a drive shaft to a driven shaft. In the simplest application, clutches connect and disconnect two rotating shafts (drive shafts or line shafts). ...
is typically 4–6 mainly buff eggs, which hatch in about 11 days. The chicks
fledge
Fledging is the stage in a flying animal's life between hatching or birth and becoming capable of flight.
This term is most frequently applied to birds, but is also used for bats. For altricial birds, those that spend more time in vulnerable c ...
in 11–12 days, but are cared for by both adults for some time after leaving the nest. The blackcap is a partial
migrant; birds from the colder areas of its range winter in scrub or trees in northwestern Europe, around the Mediterranean and in tropical Africa. Some birds from Germany and western continental Europe have adapted to spending the winter in gardens in Great Britain and Ireland. Insects are the main food in the breeding season, but, for the rest of the year, blackcaps survive primarily on small fruit. Garden birds also eat bread, fat and
peanut
The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...
s in winter.
Despite extensive hunting in Mediterranean countries and the natural hazards of predation and disease, the blackcap has been extending its range for several decades, and is classified by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
as
least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...
. Its rich and varied song has led to it being described as the "mock nightingale" and it has featured in literature, films and music. In
Messiaen's opera ''
Saint François d'Assise
''Saint François d'Assise : Scènes Franciscaines'' (English: Franciscan Scenes of Saint Francis of Assisi), or simply ''Saint François d'Assise'', is an opera in three acts and eight scenes by French composer Olivier Messiaen, who was also i ...
'', the
saint
In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...
is represented by themes based on the blackcap's song.
Taxonomy
The genus ''Sylvia'', the
typical warbler
The typical warblers are small birds belonging to the genus ''Sylvia'' in the "Old World warbler" (or sylviid warbler) family (biology), family Sylviidae.Del Hoyo, J.; Elliot, A., & Christie, D. (editors). (2006). ''Handbook of the Birds of the ...
s, forms part of a large family of Old World warblers, the
Sylviidae
Sylviidae is a family of passerine birds that includes the typical warblers and a number of babblers formerly placed within the Old World babbler family. They are found in Eurasia and Africa.
Taxonomy and systematics
The scientific name Sylviid ...
. The blackcap and its nearest relative, the
garden warbler
The garden warbler (''Sylvia borin'') is a common and widespread small bird that breeds in most of Europe and in the Palearctic to western Siberia. It is a plain, long-winged and long-tailed typical warbler with brown upperparts and dull white ...
, are an ancient
species pair
In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...
which diverged very early from the rest of the genus at between 12 and 16 million years ago. In the course of time, these two species have become sufficiently distinctive that they have been placed in separate subgenera, with the blackcap in subgenus ''Sylvia'' and the garden warbler in ''Epilais''.
[Shirihai ''et al'' (2001) pp. 25–27.] These
sister species
In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree.
Definition
The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram:
Taxon A and t ...
have a breeding range which extends farther northeast than all other ''Sylvia'' species except the
lesser whitethroat
The lesser whitethroat (''Curruca curruca'') is a common and widespread typical warbler which breeds in temperate Europe, except the southwest, and in the western and central Palearctic. This small passerine bird is strongly migratory, winteri ...
and
common whitethroat
The common whitethroat or greater whitethroat (''Curruca communis'') is a common and widespread typical warbler which breeds throughout Europe and across much of temperate western Asia. This small passerine bird is strongly migratory, and winter ...
.
The nearest relatives of the garden warbler outside the sister group are believed to be the
African hill babbler
The African hill babbler (''Sylvia abyssinica'') is a species of bird in the family Sylviidae.
Taxonomy
The African hill babbler was described by the German naturalist Eduard Rüppell in 1840 under the binomial name ''Drymophila abyssinica''. T ...
and
Dohrn's thrush-babbler
Dohrn's warbler (''Sylvia dohrni''), also known as Principe flycatcher-babbler, Dohrn's flycatcher, Dohrn's thrush-babbler, is a species of passerine bird in the family Sylviidae that is endemic to the island of Príncipe which lies off the west ...
, both of which should probably be placed in ''Sylvia'' rather than their current genera, ''Pseudoalcippe'' and ''Horizorhinus'' respectively.
The blackcap was one of the many
bird species originally described by
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
in his landmark 1758
10th edition of ''
Systema Naturae
' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomen ...
'', as ''Motacilla atricapilla''.
[Linnaeus (1758) p. 187.] The current genus name is from
Modern Latin
New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy a ...
''silvia'', a woodland sprite, related to ''silva'', a wood.
[Jobling (2010) p. 376.] The species name, like the English name, refers to the male's black cap. ''Atricapilla'' is from the Latin ''ater'', "black", and ''capillus'', "hair (of the head)".
[Jobling (2010) p. 59.]
Fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
s and
subfossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...
s of the blackcap have been found in a number of European countries; the oldest, dated to 1.2–1.0 million years ago, are from the
Early Pleistocene
The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, being the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently estimated to span the time ...
of Bulgaria.
Fossils from France show that the genus ''Sylvia'' dates back at least 20 million years.
[Mason (1995) p. 11.]
Subspecies
The differences between subspecies are small, making subspecific boundaries hard to define, and the exact distribution of ''S. a. heineken'' is unclear, since birds from northwest Africa may be of this form.
[Mason (1995) pp. 15–18.] About 2% of male blackcaps on
Madeira
)
, anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira")
, song_type = Regional anthem
, image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg
, map_alt=Location of Madeira
, map_caption=Location of Madeira
, subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...
and the
Azores
)
, motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace")
, anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores")
, image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg
, map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union
, map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...
are
melanistic
The term melanism refers to black pigment and is derived from the gr, μελανός. Melanism is the increased development of the dark-colored pigment melanin in the skin or hair.
Pseudomelanism, also called abundism, is another variant of pi ...
, with black plumage on the whole head and upper breast.
Melanistic females are rarer, and are characterised by grey-brown underparts. This dark
morph
Morph may refer to:
Biology
* Morph (zoology), a visual or behavioral difference between organisms of distinct populations in a species
* Muller's morphs, a classification scheme for genetic mutations
* "-morph", a suffix commonly used in tax ...
has also been recorded from the
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...
, but not from
Cape Verde
, national_anthem = ()
, official_languages = Portuguese
, national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole
, capital = Praia
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, demonym ...
. The melanistic birds were formerly sometimes considered to be a distinct subspecies, ''S. a. obscura''.
[Shirihai ''et al'' (2010) pp. 54–56.]
Description
The blackcap is a mainly grey warbler with distinct male and female
plumage
Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...
s. The
nominate subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
is about long with a wing length.
[ The weight is typically , but can be up to for birds preparing to migrate.][ The adult male has olive-grey upperparts, other than a paler grey nape and a neat black cap on the head. The underparts are light grey, becoming silvery white on the chin, throat and upper breast. The tail is dark grey, with an olive tint to the outer edge of each feather. The bill and long legs are grey, and the ]iris
Iris most often refers to:
*Iris (anatomy), part of the eye
*Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess
* ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
* Iris (color), an ambiguous color term
Iris or IRIS may also refer to:
Arts and media
Fictional ent ...
is reddish brown. The female resembles the male, but has a reddish-brown cap and a slightly browner tone to the grey of the upperparts. Juveniles are similar to the female, but their upperparts have a slight rufous tinge, and the breast and flanks have a more olive tone; young males have a darker brown cap than their female counterparts.[ This species is unmistakable; other dark-headed ''Sylvia'' species, such Sardinian and ]Orphean warbler Orphean warbler is the name of:
* Eastern Orphean warbler ''Sylvia crassirostris''
* Western Orphean warbler ''Sylvia hortensis''
Birds by common name
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