Blackcap
| Blackcap | ||||||||||||
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Blackcap ( Sylvia communis ) |
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| Sylvia communis | ||||||||||||
| Latham , 1787 |
The warbler ( Sylvia communis ) is a songbird belonging to the genus of warblers ( Sylvia ) and is widespread in Europe . It prefers habitats with thorny bushes in which to build its nest.
description
The blackcap is 13 to 15 centimeters long and weighs 12 to 17 grams. This makes it one of the larger warbler species.
The top is gray-brown, the underside whitish. The flanks are light brown. The feathers of the wings (main and cover plumage) are black and have broad rust-brown edges. The tail, which is long compared to other warblers, is gray-brown, the outer edges of the outer tail feathers are white. The throat is white, the legs are yellow-brown.
The male has a gray head, a wide white eye ring and a pink chest. The iris is red ocher. The female has a brown tinted head, light beige breast and brown iris. Young birds in the first winter are similar to females.
Blackcocks played an important role in the discovery and scientific recognition of the magnetic sense .
voice
The chant of the blackcap is a typical warbler-like "chatter", fast, squashed tone sequences with less melodic themes. The motto for singing is - “I'll do it! I told you! ”- said quickly.
The hoarse, somewhat nasal call sounds like “wähd wähd” or “woid woid”. The warning call is a drawn out, rough "tschähr" that resembles that of the Provence warbler .
Habitat and Distribution
The blackcap lives in open landscapes with thorny bushes and shrubs as a nesting place, e.g. B. thorny field hedges or fields with individual thorn bushes, or on embankments and in old gravel pits.
The blackcap is a long-distance migrant . As a summer bird, it is widespread across almost all of Europe with the exception of Northern Scandinavia from April to September . The winter quarters are in tropical Africa south of the Sahara .
nutrition
The blackcatcher feeds on spiders , mollusks, berries , insects and their larvae .
Reproduction
The sexual maturity occurs after one year. The bowl-shaped nest , built from grass, roots, hair and stalks, is mostly well hidden in the thick undergrowth just above the ground. The female lays 4 to 5 eggs . The eggs are incubated alternately by both partners for 11 to 13 days in the main breeding season May to July. The young birds hatch naked and stay in the nest for 10 to 12 days.
Population development and endangerment
As its scientific species name communis suggests, the blackcap was a very common bird until the second half of the 20th century. In the spring of 1969, however, a massive drop in the number of black warblers returning from winter quarters was registered. Investigations have shown that the severe droughts in the Sahel region south of the Sahara , which hit this area in the winter of 1968/1969, were directly related to the collapse of the population. The blackcap populations have not fully recovered from this decline to this day. The desertification in the wintering area, but also the destruction of the habitat in the breeding area are held responsible for this sustained population decline . Nevertheless, the blackcap is still one of the more common birds today. Their population in Europe is estimated at 7–22 million animals.
literature
- Lars Svensson , Peter J. Grant, Killian Mullarney, Dan Zetterström: The new cosmos bird guide: all species of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East . Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07720-9 .
- Peter Berthold : Bird migration: a current overview . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2007, ISBN 978-3-534-20267-6 .
Web links
- Pictures and further information about the blackcap at www.naturfotografie-digital.de
- Sylvia communis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed on December 22 of 2008.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Sylvia communis in the Internet Bird Collection
- Photos on www.naturlichter.de
- Entry at the Swiss Ornithological Institute
- Age and gender determination (PDF; 3.6 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta and Gerd-Michael Heinze (English)
- Black warbler feathers
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Wiltschko and Friedrich Wilhelm Merkel : Migration orientation of thorn warblers (Sylvia communis). In: Vogelwarte. Volume 26, 1971, pp. 245-249.
- ↑ Blackcap. (PDF; 0.5 MB) Biology Center Linz of the Upper Austrian State Museum, accessed on April 26, 2015 .