Canary Islands Chiffchaff

The Canary Islands Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus canariensis) is a species of leaf warbler endemic to the Canary Islands, Spain. Sometimes the English name is spelled Canary Island Chiffchaff (Sangster et al., 2002).

Taxonomy

Previously the Canary Island Chiffchaff was considered as a subspecies of the Common Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita). Now it is recognised as a separate species under the name Phylloscopus canariensis (Clement & Helbig, 1998; Sangster et al., 2002) for the following reasons (compared to the Common Chiffchaff) (Helbig et al., 1996):

• Smaller in size
• Shorter wings
• Wings rounder
• Vocalizations different
• mtDNA sequence divergence

Subspecies

• Western Canary Islands Chiffchaff: Western Canary Islands: El Hierro, La Palma, La Gomera, Tenerife, and Gran Canaria.
• Eastern Canary Islands Chiffchaff: Eastern Canary Islands: Lanzarote and possibly Fuerteventura.

References

• Clement, P. & Helbig, A. J. (1998): Taxonomy and identification of chiffchaffs in the Western Palearctic. Brit. Birds 91: 361–376.

• Helbig, A. J.; Martens, J.; Seibold, I.; Henning, F.; Schottler, B. & Wink, M. (1996): Phylogeny and species limits in the Palearctic Chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita complex: mitochondrial genetic differentiation and bioacoustic evidence. Ibis 138(4): 650–666.

• Sangster, George; Knox, Alan G.; Helbig, Andreas J. & Parkin, David T. (2002): Taxonomic recommendations for European birds. Ibis 144(1): 153–159. doi:10.1046/j.0019-1019.2001.00026.x PDF fulltext