I am pleased to announce that I saw a newly fledged blackcap today just a few meters from where I made my original observation in spring. So whatever was going on, it ended in a successful liaison, presumably between a male and a female!!
I can also confirm that Grey Wagtails sing to each other and together! Last night I encountered a singing wagtail in a small tree round the corner which flew out then the second bird carried on and also popped out and the two flew onto the house roofs singing the while. NB female Blackcap heard sang with a male singing nearby...
If only moults in birds were so easily predicted! There are a small amount that go through a complete post juvenile moult, but the majority, I understand do not. There are almost certainly some that retain sone degree of juvenile plumage into the first year.
I'm no expert but as far as I'm aware female Blackcap are one of the 70% that do sing.
The bigger issue here is identifying the female from juvenile males. I'm not sure this is something we can answer in the field. http://aulaenred.ibercaja.es/wp-content/uploads/374_BlackcapSatricapilla.pdf
Jamie,
If I'm reading the paper your link takes me to correctly, I would presume that by this time of year, all male blackcaps should have a black cap. The issue of juvenile plumages shouldn't come into it by the following Spring, but stranger things have happened. I must say that having been observing birds for about 40 years, I have never seen a female bird sing (where there is obvious sexual dimorphism).
I'm no expert but as far as I'm aware female Blackcap are one of the 70% that do sing.
The bigger issue here is identifying the female from juvenile males. I'm not sure this is something we can answer in the field. http://aulaenred.ibercaja.es/wp-content/uploads/374_BlackcapSatricapilla.pdf
Thanks for the affirmation. I imagine that if a female stays on or within easy reach of where she spent the previous summer, she may well arrive first. And what better way to attract a passing male? Or would it make them steer clear of the site, thus allowing the original pair to reclaim it for themselves once the male 'owner' returned?. Bird study is full of so many unanswered questions.
I had a strange encounter near to home yesterday. Or Did I? I was delighted to hear my first blackcap of the year singing a few dozen yards away, and you always want to see the first one, don't you? So I approached the cover it had been singing from, did a passable imitation of a blackcap call, and out hopped the bird from whence the song had eminated. As soon as raised my binoculars, it flew a short way to the left where I just had chance to see the brown cap of a female blackcap before it sank into the thick cover. Immediately, from that same spot, I heard a few bursts of blackcap sub-song and saw the brown cap again, but despite waiting around (and trying to lure it out), I had no further sightings and the song stopped. Now as far as I am concerned the location of the song matched the appearance of the 'female' on two occasions, and I'm fairly convinced it was doing the singing. On checking the Internet, I saw the results of one piece of research which suggested that females sing in 71% of all species (where data is available). So what did I have? A female in song? A male which had somehow kept its male 'juvenile' plumage since last year? Or an unseen male just leading me astray? Has anyone else witnessed this in blackcaps, or any other species they've come across? It would certainly create a lot of doubt in the world of breeding bird recording if this kind of thing was more common than we imagine.
