WITH THEIR SMART SKULLCAPS – jet black in males, chestnut in females – blackcaps are pretty dapper birds. But it is the male blackcap’s song that really makes your heart soar. Gilbert White, the great 18th-century nature diarist, called the performance a “full, sweet, deep, loud and wild pipe.” It’s so full of joie de vivre, it easily outdoes most other birds singing nearby. Indeed, the blackcap’s song rivals even that of the nightingale.
You’re far more likely to hear blackcaps than nightingales, of course. The former start singing in the first half of March, and continue pouring their hearts out throughout the land until at least July. Nightingales, on the other hand, arrive in southern England much later, from mid-April, and their celebrated song is seldom heard after early…
