Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) male🐦

Photo: Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 4.0

SpeciesPasseriformesSylviidae
Birds

🐦Eurasian blackcap

Sylvia atricapilla (Linnaeus, 1758)

The Eurasian blackcap is a bird usually known simply as the blackcap. It is a common and widespread warbler. It has mainly olive-grey upperparts and pale grey underparts, and differences across the five subspecies are small. Both sexes have a neat coloured cap to the head, black in the male and reddish-brown in the female. The male's typical song is a rich musical warbling, often ending in a loud high-pitched crescendo, but a simpler song is given in some isolated areas, such as valleys in the Alps. The blackcap's closest relative is the garden warbler, which looks quite different but has a similar song.

Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Measurements
10
vs you
≈ 1/3,710th of your weight
Also called
Sylvia atricapilla, Blackcap, blackcap
Conservation status
LCLeast concern

IUCN Red List assessment, 2025.

Population trendIncreasing
Key measurements
Body mass
0.02 kg
Body length
not recorded
Shoulder height
not recorded
Top speed
not recorded
Bite force
not recorded
Maximum lifespan
14 years
All measurements ↓
Facts and figures

Everything we know about the Eurasian blackcap

Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.

Body mass
0.02 kg
AVONET
Other figures ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Figures vary

  • 0.02 kgAnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: acceptable
Tail length
0.06 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Wing length
0.08 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Beak length
0.02 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Tarsus length
0.02 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Maximum lifespan
14 years
AnAge
Details ↓

data quality: acceptable

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Trophic level
Omnivore
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Habitat
Woodland
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Lifestyle
Insessorial
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Volume l
0 Laverage
Details ↓

Body mass at ~1.0 kg/L, the density of vertebrate tissue.

average = a mean across sexes or species in a group.

Not recorded for Eurasian blackcap yet: body length, shoulder height, top speed, bite force.

Where it sits

Family tree

  1. kingdomAnimalia
  2. ›phylumChordata
  3. ›classAves
  4. ›orderPasseriformes
  5. ›familySylviidae
  6. ›genusSylvia
  7. ›speciesSylvia atricapilla
Full lineage
  1. superclassTetrapoda
  2. orderSauria
  3. classBirds · Aves
  4. orderPerching birds · Passeriformes
All 10 branches ↓
  1. kingdomMetazoa
  2. phylumChordata
  3. subphylumCraniata
  4. subphylumVertebrata
  5. superclassGnathostomata
  6. superclassSarcopterygii
  7. superclassTetrapoda
  8. orderSauria
  9. classBirds · Aves
  10. orderPerching birds · Passeriformes
More

More about the Eurasian blackcap

In other languages
svarthätta (sv), Sylvia atricapilla (de), munk (nb), Munk (da), tallarol de casquet (ca), pěnice černohlavá (cs) … and 26 more languages
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