GARDEN WARBLER (Sylvia borin) -Fauvette des jardins
SUMMARY
The definitive “little brown job”, shy and hides and sings in dense vegetation. The song is hard to distinguish from Blackcap.
This is the first of two birds that are really difficult to separate by voice - the Garden Warbler and the Blackcap.
Garden Warbler © Arlette Berlie
The Garden Warbler is found up to the tree line but is really a lowland species most abundant below about 800m. Whilst it does inhabit gardens it really favours somewhat scrubby vegetation where it remains mostly hidden (just like a Blackcap), and since it is a generally small dull brown bird this does not help with identification. Whilst it will sing out in the open occasionally most song is delivered from a concealed perch often delivered as snatches in between foraging - it always seems to be very busy whenever I successfully see it ! The song is a bewildering arrangements of almost random warbles from which it is impossible to derive any particular pattern:
Here is a sonogram, but again it is of marginal help in trying to work out what is going on:
As I said, this and the Blackcap have very similar songs, but it is the quality of delivery that helps distinguish them. A Garden Warbler seems to have more fluid, mellow notes, some of which swing about a bit (you can see this at least in the sonogram), it also has a more hurried feel to it than a Blackcap song which is slower and more deliberate. Finally Garden Warblers sometimes deliver very long sequences - the second phrase in the following recording (starting at 11 secs) lasts about 41 seconds and is a long delivery of seemingly wild singing of the kind you never hear from a Blackcap:
© Frank Jarvis
See the Blackcap for a comparison of the two.
