New bird in garden - Identify?

Eglinton

Hi there. This is a new bird to me. Can someone identify it for me? Pics aren't great. Couldn't get a straight on shot of his head.

star-pants

Moved from API

Thoushaltnot

Hi, there was talk of this on the radio (FM 106) earlier today and your bird matches the description - the Black cap, coming over here from Germany. (I think they said that it's easier to get food here!) I'm by no means an expert though.

Eglinton

Thanks, I was just googling common garden bird images now and I saw a black cap there. Could very well be one.

Hearvee

A bit like this lad? It's a Blackcap. Never seen one myself before yesterday!

Amalgam

It's a Black Cap, bah.. aggressive little buggers.. It has a very distinctive shriek when trying to bully tits and other birds away from a single feeder.

Try and spread your food about more than one area of a garden if you want a larger variety of birds.

A Black Cap will 'guard' a single feeding point in a rather manic manner.

Eglinton

Amalgam wrote: »

It's a Black Cap, bah.. aggressive little buggers.. It has a very distinctive shriek when trying to bully tits and other birds away from a single feeder.

Try and spread your food about more than one area of a garden if you want a larger variety of birds.

A Black Cap will 'guard' a single feeding point in a rather manic manner.

Thanks guys, definitely the one. Interesting about the agression. Will have to spread the food so.

Alun

Definitely a black cap, and a male at that. The females look the same but have a 'caramel' coloured cap instead.

Dunno about them being aggressive though ... on my bird feeder the black caps have to get in there when they can or be chased off smartish by the goldfinches, who seem to be constantly fighting and squabbling amongst themselves and chasing everything else away.

Amalgam

We have one and he seems to be on steroids.. Annoying, I can't understand the 'worth' of the behaviour, because the male seems to use up so much energy just chasing after the tits.

The problem was I had suet\seed balls all down a single side of a garden hedge. The Black Cap would just sit in the hedge shrieking away. I had to put other balls a good 3 or 4 meters apart, elsewhere in the garden.

Half-cocked

They like apples, cut in half and stuck on branches.

BrianD3

The green netting around those fat balls could entangle and trap a bird's foot. It is generally recommended to cut off the netting. Not sure how you'd hang the fatballs then, I generally don't hang them.

Hammer Archer

BrianD3 wrote: »

The green netting around those fat balls could entangle and trap a bird's foot. It is generally recommended to cut off the netting. Not sure how you'd hang the fatballs then, I generally don't hang them.

I either put them in hanging baskets or you can buy a feeder for them like this one
http://www.acornmediauk.com/index.php/lifestyle-1/outdoor/energy-ball-feeder.html
I've a bigger one that holds 6 or 7 of them and the birds go mad for it.