BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Paul Chapman" data-source="post: 3182131" data-attributes="member: 69491">Before I sort out those photos, having thoroughly enjoyed the trip and spent a long time with the Birds of the Atlantic Islands on the way home, my thoughts have turned to what remaining Canary Islands targets there may be for me.There are six species that occur on the Canaries but nowhere else - Laurel Pigeon, Bolle's Pigeon, Canary Islands Chat, Canary Islands Chiffchaff, Tenerife Goldcrest & Blue Chaffinch. There are four species that occur there and only on the other Atlantic Islands - Baroli's Shearwater, Berthelot's Pipit, Plain Swift & Canary. I saw all ten on the first trip and on time of year and lack of seawatching, I saw nine on this trip - no Baroli's Shearwater.‎In addition to those, there is a recently extinct species - Canary Islands Oystercatcher - and two extinct subspecies - exsul Canary Islands Chiffchaff and rufescens Lesser Short-toed Lark. At least I believe the Northern ‎Tenerife subspecies of Lesser Short-toed Lark is now extinct.There are twenty six extant subspecies endemic to the Canaries - Egyptian Vulture, Common Buzzard, Common Kestrel (2), Houbara Bustard, Stone-curlew (2), Barn Owl, Long-eared Owl, Great Spotted Woodpecker (2), Lesser Short-toed Lark, Grey Wagtail, Robin, Sardinian Warbler , African Blue Tit (4), Southern Grey Shrike, Chaffinch (3), Linnet (2) and Trumpeter Finch. I saw 18 of these on my first trip and 16 of these on my second.‎ We did not see Linnet on Tenerife or Stone-curlew on Fuerteventura.In addition, seven subspecies found on the Canaries are only found on the Atlantic Islands - White-faced Storm-petrel, Sparrowhawk, Yellow-legged Gull, Quail, Blackbird, Spectacled Warbler and Rock Sparrow. Chough and Raven share their subspecies with North Africa and Blackcap, Greenfinch and Goldfinch with North Africa and Southern Europe.‎ I saw 9 on my first trip and I had 8 on this trip. I did not record Quail on our first trip and we did not record Rock Sparrow and ‎Greenfinch on our second trip.‎This analysis leaves the following potential targets for me in the future - on the basis of the Madeiran Storm-petrel split, two species - Grant's and Monteiro's Storm-petrel (as I have previously seen Cape Verde Storm-petrel) - and ten subspecies ticks - hypoleuca White-faced Storm-petrel (having previously seen the subspecies on Cape Verde), canariensis Long-eared Owl (throughout the Canaries), distinctus Stone-curlew (W Canaries), gracilirostris Barn Owl (Fuerteventura and Lanzarote), thanneri Great Spotted Woodpecker and polatzeki Blue Chaffinch (Gran Canaria), ombriosus African Blue Tit and ombriosa Chaffinch (El Hierro) and palmensis African Blue Tit and palmae Chaffinch (La Palma).All the best</blockquote>

Verification