Sentences with word «blackcap»

If blackcaps wintering there fare worse than their counterparts in the United Kingdom or Spain, the «selection against [these birds] could promote further divergence between the two groups,» Irwin says.

In the past 50 years, a migratory schism has appeared among central European blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla).

At 45 - 65 ft, divers can find small schools of blackcap basslets close to or under the overhangs.

Fifty years ago, most German blackcaps flew south to Spain or Portugal for the winter.

I just made this pie with wild native blackberries and wild blackcap raspberries.

Martin Schaefer at the University of Freiburg in Germany and colleagues measured genetic variation between blackcaps in two German sites 800 kilometres apart just after the birds had returned from their winter grounds on the Iberian peninsula and in the UK, respectively.

Shorter and milder winters are allowing more blackcaps to overwinter in Britain rather than on the Iberian Peninsula.

Now, roughly 30 generations later, about 10 % of blackcaps migrate to the United Kingdom in the winter instead of to Spain.

So the scientists caught blackcaps when the birds returned to Germany in the spring and sequenced short stretches of their genomes called microsatellites.

The United Kingdom is closer to blackcap breeding grounds in central Europe than is Spain, so the northwest - migrating birds return home 10 days earlier and start mating among themselves.

Whether blackcaps will eventually diverge into different species depends on the fitness of offspring from crosses between northwest - and southwest - migrating birds, says evolutionary biologist Darren Irwin of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, in Canada.

A recent study showed that this new winter destination has led blackcaps to breed mainly with their migratory companions.

The European blackcap, above, is evolving in response to climate change.

I'll confess to be jealous that you have these blackcaps just outside your door.

Wild black raspberries (also known as «blackcaps») are quite seedy, but they're a wonderful treat; if you can find some in your «hood («the East Coast to the Rockies, but not in the deep South» according to Wildman Steve Brill), you are lucky indeed.

«The bird food that the blackcaps rely upon in Britain is powdered, so there is no longer selection for the broad beaks that allow the bird to eat large fruits such as olives on the Iberian Peninsula,» says Schaefer.

Schaefer's team also found that German blackcaps wintering in the UK possess browner plumage on their backs, rounder wings and pointier beaks than blackcaps that migrate south.

To their surprise, the team found that blackcaps that spend winter in Spain share more genes with those that live 800 kilometres away but also overwinter in Spain than they do with blackcaps that live in the same forests but overwinter in the UK.

A blackcap was even seen incubating a slug feeding on dead chicks.

The 16 bird species surveyed were: red - backed shrike; great tit; barn swallow; wood warbler; blackcap; whitethroat; barred warbler; tree pipit; chaffinch; hawfinch; mistle thrush; song thrush; blackbird; black redstart; robin and thrush nightingale.

On page 502, ecologists report that changes in the migration patterns of European blackcaps that breed in southern Germany and Austria are causing them to reproduce more than blackcaps that continue to use their traditional wintering grounds, which may improve the chances of the birds forming two species.

This blackcap may be taking off for a British winter spent foraging from bird feeders.

But in the 1960s, bird watchers started noticing some blackcaps wintering in the United Kingdom.

They trapped birds from 14 populations of the European blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla, pictured), a warbler that spends summer in...