I have a post coming up in which I discuss the intriguing and changing migratory behaviour of the Blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla. For several years, we have seen this species spend the winter in our garden. One year we had a male and a female.
The likelihood is that these birds flew from their summer breeding grounds in southern Germany and instead of reaching Iberia or North West Africa they got slightly lost and ended up in Old Blighty…England. It’s been happening like this for a couple of decades at least.
The male that overwintered with us 22/23 has departed and soon the Blackcaps that migrate from sub-Saharan Africa will arrive in our woodlands to breed in the summer.
Anyway, I wrote a poem for Sylvia.
Overwintering
She came in from the East. Her compass quite askew
Should’ve spent the winter in Iberia, but Old Blighty will have to do
Her chestnut cap is fluffed up. And her buff breast is scruffy too
Those chilly winds chill the feast, there’s nothing else that she can do
but peck at firethorn berries behind sparrows in the queue
And sulk among the mistletoe. Till Christmas takes its due
This land beyond the floodlands, with a date she’ll take in lieu
No nest, no mate. No direction yet, a Blackcap looking blue
When seasons change, they’ll send her back to the place where once she flew
And with the spring and high on life, she’ll bid us all adieu
Then find a mate, and build a nest for now she takes her cue
She’ll live her life and raise her brood with not a thought for you
But the world will turn and the winds will change as always they will do
Bring her back to Old Blighty. Yet, with no different a point of view
She’ll sulk and peck at mistletoe. The winter she’ll see through
And bravely hide from Easterlies, there’s nothing else that she can do
–David Bradley
