54. Blackcap

24 October 2010, 12:00am

1 min read

If you have a garden with thick mature ivy growing up a wall, you can be almost sure that at some time your garden has been visited by Blackcaps. You probably wouldn't have noticed, because Blackcaps are not large, noisy or showy birds. On the contrary they often skulk among foliage and you'd hardly know they're they. The Blackcap (M: Kapinera) is one of many perching birds that fly to the Mediterranean in autumn to spend a relatively balmy winter in these gentler latitudes. They love woodland and they adore Ivy berries (poisonous to humans, by the way, so don't go picking). As the name implies, Blackcaps look like they're wearing a neat black skull cap. At least the males do - the females' caps are brown (but no they are not call Browncaps!).

Text by Victor Falzon, photo by Aron Tanti.