best part of the day: blackcap

Friday, 24 April 2026

blackcap

14-04-26 Blackcaps are difficult to see - they are shy and not inclined to stick around if you get close to them. So much so, I had to nick the above photo from my next blog because I didn't get a decent photo to accompany this blog. It was a successful day out and started with a sighting of the kingfisher but he didn't hang about either, flying off when I got close enough for a photo.

if you are going to behave like that you can fish off

Everything is coming alive in Warriston. Plants are blossoming, budding or sprouting leaves. The birds are busy singing about Spring or finding partners and building nests. I saw loads of stuff. Not what I was hoping for, but enough to fill a page. I was probably looking for butterflies especially orange tips or whites. Around now is the only time of year the whites are held in high regard.

Small whites, GVWs and orange tip females. You need to see them up close before telling which is which, and after a month nobody really cares. They are the blank canvas of lepidotera, the unused printer paper of the insect world. The other white, the large white is the best white (excluding bath whites and other exotics). The orange tip male though is a harbinger of Spring and with its bright orange wingtips you can recognise it from a speeding car; a high tariff beauty. Well until you have photographed it half a dozen times wings open in bright sunshine. Until then (and you have grown bored with them) they are the kings of the cemetery. Saw NONE today. But in getting out to look for them I saw other stuff. Here it is.

robin - always good value for money

lots of speckled woods
they will no doubt be the most numerous species all Summer, again

syrphus spec.

speckled wood

wild cherry

song thrush

wren

Claytonia sibirica - pink purslane, Siberian spring beauty
Siberian miner's lettuce, candy flower - more names than sense

great tit

stock dove

speckled wood

chaffinch (m)

syrphus spec.

coal tit

wren

blue tit

chaffinch

wren

Alan

The birds by the tunnel stream were well behaved and kept me entertained for quite some while. Just the garden birds you'd expect, as well as bees. As it warmed up I thought there must be some butterflies at the In Loving area by now. I bumped into Alan who said there were blackcaps near the war memorial. I couldn't see any there but now that I had been prompted to think of them I kept my ears open as you often hear their mellifluous song before you see them. They are a bit drab grey in colour but with a titular black cap which makes them very recognisable.