Garden Warbler/Blackcap song (1 Viewer)

[paulwfromtheden]

I find this one of the hardest to distinguish; a Blackcap mugged me this morning!!
Does anyone have any decent tips to help?

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

I always think of a Blackcap as sounding like a fast Robin and a Garden Warbler as sounding like a fast Blackbird. Blackcaps always tend to have some quite high thin notes in their song, whereas Garden Warblers are all low mellow notes (much more even in pitch) rather like a Blackbird. This works for me, although it's admittedly only a rough guide and doesn't solve the mimicry problem.

Have a listen to this Blackcap song. You can hear lots of thin, sweet and high pitched Robin-like notes.
In this Garden Warbler song, the notes are much more even in pitch and rather full, deep, mellow and Blackbird-like.

 

[Capercaillie71]

A blackcap giving full-blown song will always tune into these high pitched flutey notes at the end of each phrase. However, there is a problem when blackcaps give a subsong that is very similar to garden warbler.

This problem comes up every year . Check out the recordings in posts#19 & 20 and the sonograms in post#25 in the following thread:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=85374

The recording of both species singing together is particularly confusing! But note the difference in the length of gaps between phrases in each species.

 

[markgrubb]

To me garden warblers have a much more even, repetitive song with a lot less variation than blackcaps. They seem to sing for longer periods without interruption. Blackcaps seem to have a more varied range of notes. And maybe not much use to you but blackcap song is the one song that can make my eardrums jangle when they hit certain notes. And to my ears blackcaps song is delivered at a slower pace-the pauses between phrases seems almost robinesque as well

 

[redeyedvideo]

Here's one I prepared earlier. (Video of Blackcap singing) I find the audio/visual usual helps.