Eurasian Blackcap

• The male puts up several half-built nests, and it is the female who chooses which of them gets finished.
• It changes diet with the season: insectivorous in spring and summer, in autumn and winter it eats large quantities of blackberries, figs, mastic and wild olive, and acts as a seed disperser.
• It colonised the Canary Islands and Madeira during the last glaciation, and its island populations have an impoverished community of blood parasites compared with mainland ones.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat & environment

A woodland species of cool, damp settings. It is most abundant in riverside groves, oak woods and holm-oak woods with dense understorey and clearings. Also pine woods, parks and gardens. In the Canary Islands it occupies the lower edge of the laurel forest

Size at birth

The chicks hatch naked

Gestation / incubation

11-12 days, with both parents incubating. The chicks fledge at 8-14 days

Litter / clutch size

2-7 eggs (usually 4-6), pinkish white with variable speckling, with two clutches a year between April and July. The male builds several rudimentary nests and the female chooses and finishes one

Sources consulted: SEO/BirdLife (ficha y III Atlas de las aves en época de reproducción en España); IUCN Red List; Asturnatura; Pérez-Tris y Remacha 2022, III Atlas; Carbonell y Tellería 1998, Ardeola 45; Aymí et al. 2020; Pérez-Tris et al. (parásitos sanguíneos en poblaciones macaronésicas)

Best time: All year round; in winter it is easier to see because birds arrive from central Europe