Blackcap Call MP3s
Crisp song and contact-call audio for one of Europe's most familiar warblers, built for identification and field study.
Also known as
Recordings (6)
About this species
The Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) is a passerine songbird of around 13 cm — plain olive-grey, the male capped glossy black, the female warm chestnut-brown. It keeps to shrubby woodland, thickets and overgrown gardens.
The male's rich, varied warble, ending in a clear flourish, ranks among Europe's finest songs. It takes insects in summer and berries in autumn, fuelling its long migration. A skulking warbler, it is far more often heard than seen among dense foliage. Its voice is woven into the soundscape of the European countryside through spring and summer.
Legal use
The Blackcap is a strictly protected songbird across virtually its entire European range and is not a legal game species anywhere it breeds or winters; it does not appear on the EU's list of huntable birds. Large numbers are still killed illegally each year through poaching and non-selective trapping in parts of the Mediterranean — most notably Cyprus, where the species is the primary target of the illegal ambelopoulia trade, with additional bycatch reported in illegal trapping elsewhere in the Mediterranean region — but this activity is unlawful under EU and national law, not a recognized hunting season, and is not the use case this product supports. This call is intended for birdwatching, species identification, and research use — see our full country-by-country disclaimer for details on protected-species rules in your location.