Birdwatch: Blackcaps in good voice for spring

The advance guard of sand martins, wheatears, and chiffchaffs, the latter in very large numbers, are already in evidence.

But over the next few weeks, they will be joined by millions more swallows, martins, warblers and chats, and by next month there will be only a few late arrivals, such as swifts and spotted flycatchers, to join them.

Singing blackcaps and willow warblers started to be heard again last week, while the first whitethroats have also returned.

Blackcaps are easy to see just now, the males, with their neat black crowns, flitting around from bare branch to branch, singing lustily to establish a territory before being joined, in a week or two, by the females, which have light brown caps.

The song is a lovely one which has earned the blackcap the alternative name of northern nightingale.

It begins with a few muttered notes, then steps up to a loud melodious outburst, ending with an emphatic fluting warble.

The garden warbler, which will also be arriving in the next week or two, has a very similar song but does not finish it in the same distinctive way.

It is now well known that increasing numbers of blackcaps spend the winter here and, as a result, county recorders no longer list the first blackcaps as they do with swallows etc, as it is impossible to tell if a blackcap seen in early March is a winter or summer visitor.

But the winter blackcaps usually sing only a snatch of their song and by now are on their way back with their females to spend the summer in southern Germany and Austria.

So a blackcap in full song and displaying now is certain to be a new arrival from somewhere around the Mediterranean.

The first yellow wagtails of the year back from the wet pastures of the Gambia, were also reported at the weekend; there have also been more white wagtails and garganey ducks, with three back at Natural England’s Lower Derwent Valley reserve. Two were still present at Wombwell Ings, South Yorkshire.

An Alpine swift, an overshooting migrant to southern Europe, was seen on Sunday over Flamborough village, and perhaps the same bird was seen the following evening over Harrogate railway station.

After roosting overnight on a nearby building, it was still present the following day.

Up to three pairs of black-necked grebes have been seen at North Duffield Carrs, while more have been seen on Natural England’s Hatfield Moors reserve, South Yorkshire, where a summer plumaged red-necked grebe is still on Ten-Acre Lake.

A Slavonian grebe is still present at Swillington Ings, Leeds.

Ospreys on passage have been seen in a number of places, including Arram Carrs, near Beverley, where one has lingered for more than a week.

They are back at English breeding sites such as Rutland Water, in the Midlands, and Bassenthwaite, in the Lake District, where a female was seen at the weekend, and where the visitor centre and viewpoints have now reopened.

A great grey shrike was seen again in Langdale Forest, North Yorkshire, while another remained at Skipwith Common, near York, where it was caught and ringed on Sunday.

Michael Flowers has started to take bookings for the spring term of his East Yorkshire birdwatching classes, which begin on May 3, and will concentrate on finding spring migrants at a variety of inland and coastal sites. Visit www.eybirdwatching.blogspot.com or contact Michael on 07946 625688 or [email protected]

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