Chiffchaffs tristis/abientinus (1 Viewer)

[Jane Turner]

I've always had a bit of a thing for Chiffchaffs, though find it almost impossible to be certain about identifying Eastern birds, what with clinal variation and all.

Here are 4 different birds that I have caught over the last 25 years... one def abientinus (4th) and 3 putative tristis. I think there is a slight differnce in call. the best looking tristis also have the most peep call. Any views?

The first bird is the best tristis as far as I am concerned

 

[Michael Frankis]

I reckon that calls (& song) are far more important than plumage features - if it peeps like a lost chick, it is tristis (even if it doesn't necessarily show every plumage feature they're 'supposed' to have); if it doesn't peep like a lost chick, it isn't (even if it does look like one).

So until you provide accompanying .wav files, I'm not going to comment on any of these

Genuine tristis Chiffs are a lot rarer than many people like to suggest - I've personally seen two, compared to five Hume's Warblers, five Dusky, six Radde's, about 15 Pallas's and no idea how many Yellow-broweds.

Michael

 

[Jane Turner]

I didn't see the second bird in the field. 1 and 3 were totally monosyllabic peep. No wave files...sorry

Add to these two/three another on Merseyside and 2 on Fair Isle, I make that a max of 6, compared to 2 Humes, 3 Raddes, 8 Duskies (another warbler that seems to follow me around) 20ish Pallas's and well 10 YBW in Merseyside, 9 in a day on Fair Isle and at a rough guess 20-30 more in the NE ..oh and one at Portland!

Do you hear abientinus as slightly longer...with a slight inflection and a slight buzz?

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Here for your amusement is a description I made of what I reckon was a tristis in Fife last year. Quite a striking looking (and sounding) bird:

Behaviour: Fed in a manner typical of a Phylloscopus warbler, flitting actively through the canopy and flicking its wings and tail. On one occasion it perched still for a few minutes.
Size and Shape: Reminiscent of a Chiffchaff with a short primary projection and a slightly forked tail.
Bare Parts: Bill and legs both very black.
Upperparts: Crown, nape, mantle and scapulars brownish grey and quite cold in tone with no yellow or greenish tones. Coverts tipped pale cream to form a noticeable wing-bar. The bastard wing was contrastingly dark. Tertials dark edged paler buff. Supercillium long, thin and off white in colour, beginning in from the bill base and continuing to the nape, down-curving slightly. This feature was prominent and gave the bird a quite sharp look. Ear coverts greyish.
Underparts: Breast sides grey-brown but otherwise underparts off-white, with a slight streaked effect.
Call: Two calls were heard, both quite thin and feeble sounding and higher pitched than a Chiffchaff of the nominate race. Given quite insistently at times. Firstly, a down-slurred “see-oo” and secondly a thin “seep”.

I saw a couple of brownish looking Chiffs last week, which I presumed were abietinus jobs, although they didn't call so hard to be sure I guess. What do people think an 'abietinus' should call like?

 

[Jane Turner]

as MF said.. classic ones go peep like a moorhen chick thats lost its family. They don't even sound like a Phyllosc.

 

[Edward]

Can't comment on the photos Jane and Michael as I have no experience of tristis Chiffchaffs and as for the other warblers you mention, then Radde's, Dusky, Hume's and Pallas's are all still missing from the Icelandic list! We really expected Pallas's this autumn but none came, i.e. none were found.

However, what do you make of this Chiffchaff seen in Iceland last month?
http://www.hi.is/~yannk/phycol03.html

Michael, is your change in flag/allegiance connected to Denmark's (deserved) win over England in yesterday's footy?

E

 

[Jane Turner]

Looks a bit too green for a classic Sibe....what did it call like?

 

[Edward]

Not sure Jane, I didn't see it and I think Gunnar would have mentioned it on the website if he had heard it call.

E

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

I should add to my description that, in comparison to Jane's pictures, it looked most like number 1 but with a super more like number 3 (the 'Dusky Warbler' haha). Wish I'd got a picture of it. Sadly no one else saw it either, even though I put the news out.

I reckon I might have seen a tristis several years earlier at Winterton. The bird had a similar call and was quite grey, but I didn't used to look so hard at things in those days so can't remember much else!

Edward - the one from Iceland looks quite sort of green, especially on the edges to the secondaries and tail feathers. Is this more prominent in the photos than it was there and then?

By the way, I've never seen any Duskys, Raddes or Humes and only had my first Pallas's this year so maybe I'm not allowed to have seen a tristis yet ;-)

 

[Michael Frankis]

Hi Fifey,
Hard to tell from a written description of the call, but it does sound promising

Guess I should qualify my personal Phyllosc totals, as they are biased to rare species, as those are much easier to get lifts for. Sad to say, some people can't be persuaded to go for rare subspecies, or for more than one of each of anything, each year (this year, I got one Pallas's, if I'd had wheels of my own, I'd have had five - easy to get a lift for one for a yeartick, but no lifts for the others). Both my tristis Chiffs were self-finds, too, both of them wintering birds found on winter bird surveys. If I'd been a bit luckier I could've got a third tristis last week (one was seen & heard well with the Hume's at Druridge Pools, but I couldn't find it despite searching)

Hi Edward,
Gunnar's bird, again hard to say with no call, but I'd lean towards abietinus (or even collybita! - it doesn't look greatly different to some of the Chiffs that breed around here), as Jane says, it looks rather green.

Yep, someone on another thread
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=10072
asked me what Danish for “3-2” was . . . so I thought I'd fly the flag for a few days

Michael

 

[Jane Turner]

Another Chiff incident.

About 15 years ago, in late April, I heard a song. It was chiff-notes from a standard Chiffchaff song, but ..and you need imagination here, sounded like a Cetti's warbler singing Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer.

It was way before any splits in Chiffchaff, and I expected it to be a Spaniard and even told a few people who were passing. Imagine my discomfort when it was greeny-brown backed with buff flanks and yellowy under-tail coverts. It was also very small, bearing in mind that it was a male.

I briefly considered canariensis, then a race..and thought that too far fetched.

As I said I like Chiffchaffs!

 

[Darrell Clegg]

I agree Jane, I think Chiffchaffs are endlessly fascinating, they are so variable and we still have a lot to learn about them.

The call has been mentioned as a factor in identifying tristis Chiffs but if you find one in March you can often hear it in song, which leaves no doubt at all. It sounds like a cross between Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler, sort of chiff, chaff, chiff, chaff and then the descending trill at the end (for our American friends, Willow Warbler sounds like a Yellow Warbler!)

One plumage feature which has been overlooked but which picture 1 shows well is the yellow on the wings and tail (remiges and retrices) the best marked tristis can look more like Bonelli's Warbler than Chiffchaff.

We get Chiffchaffs wintering in big numbers down here eg 150 at St Austell Sewage works, 100, Helston Sewage works, so finding grey Chiffs is not a problem, sorting out the real tristis is much more of a challenge.

Darrell

 

[Michael Frankis]

as MF said.. classic ones go peep like a moorhen chick thats lost its family. They don't even sound like a Phyllosc.

One qualifier to that - they don't sound so very different to Phylloscopus sibilatrix on call . . .

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Another interesting Chiffchaff variation is the Mountain Chiffchaff Phylloscopus (collybita) lorenzii. I saw a few of these in Turkey and I have to say they looked a lot like the Chiffchaffs in Jane's pictures, although perhaps with no obvious green tones (like it says in the books). The song is actually very similar to collybita, certainly a lot more so than Siberian or Iberian are supposed to sound.

As well as the whole taxonomy debate, this made me wonder about the possibility of vagrancy with Mountain Chiffchaffs. It's assumed that they are only short-distance altitudinal migrants and so they shouldn't turn up far from their breeding range but then again how do we know this? If we come across a brown Chiffchaff, lacking in green tones and with a funny call then we automatically start thinking in terms of abietinus and tristis and not lorenzii. So any tendency towards vagrancy in the latter will be obscured by our assumptions. Lorenzii has never been recorded in Britain (as far as I know) but then has anyone ever actually entertained the possibility? Just goes to show how little we know about both Chiffchaff taxonomy and migration.

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

What about the young bird issue (which I think is mentioned in Collins). This August I heard what I thought was going to be a juv Coot/Moorhen (it was on the edge of a lake), turned out to be a collybita Chiffchaff.

If juv collybita do this when exactly would they stop?

Stephen.

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

Another thought - several books suggest abietinus and collybita have overlapping calls anyway.

My recent experience concerns a bird which sounded like a 'distressed chick' last autumn I couldn't see well, and a bird this year which called similarly and looked like an abietinus.

Stephen.

 

[Edward woodwood]

Michael took the words out of my mouth with his first post. Without calls descriptions it would be almost impossible to be ‘sure’ due to the vagaries of film stock etc. I’ve seen a few claimed as tristis but I’ve not yet made it to Siberia (but next summer I have a hare-brained scheme to get there for six weeks!) to check for myself. Seen a couple this year that I guess were abietinus including a very pale bird (colder/greyer than the claimed Sibes and almost silvery white underneath that called just like a collybita. Also heard a greenish bird call with a sucked in ‘heet’

Sorry not to be able to help more.

 

[Jane Turner]

I wasn't expecting miracles... just wanted put to put up some Chiff pics

The first bird came with a Pallas's a Dusky and two Yellow-broweds, so pretty good company for a Sibe. It hung around for a couple of days and spent most of its time feeding low down. like a Dusky. Another probable tristis I've seen did the same. Despite its more illustrious company I spent ages watching the Chiff!

 

[HH75]

Hi Jane et al,
I have seen perhaps 4 good candidates for tristis,but regrettably didn't hear any of them call!
A bird at Firkeel just over a week ago(and thus during the Pallas' influx here)was almost white below,and pale grey-brown above with a more pronounced supercilium than on most collybita:for a brief moment I entertained thoughts of Hume's Warbler as it came out of cover head on!
Confusingly,once had an early spring Chiffchaff at the Old Head that gave the "lost chick" call of tristis,but was darker brown above than I'd have liked for that form.
Harry H

 

[logos]

There is widespread confusion about the identification of eastern Chiffchaffs, not surprisingly really as the three widely recognised forms do not seem to correspond very well with the geographical limits of the plumage features associated with each, perhaps neither do calls.

There is a lack of information about what happens either side of the Ural Mountains which represent a break in distribution. Conventional wisdom suggests that to the west birds are of the form abietinus and to the east tristis, though some supposed abietinus (based on distribution and call) seem to look more colourless and 'eastern' than some birds from east of the Urals - so called 'fulvescens'. It is only much further east that birds occur which consistently only show tristis plumage features (which, incidentally are essentially buffy brown birds with no green and, incidentally, little suggestion of marked grey tones in the mantle).

Statistically, most of the obvious non-collybitta Chiffchaffs seen in Europe will be eastern abietinus and 'fulvescens' tristis but pure tristis must also occur based on migration strategy and population size.

Certain tristis (on range) certainly have a distinctive song (consisting of a three rather than two note pattern and occasionally sounding like the opening notes of the song of a Willow Warbler). How far west this song can be heard is a mystery to me though I don't know of any evidence that it is regualrly heard west of the Urals.

Call is a more difficult clue to use as there is some individual variation and people can hear the same call differently. The calls are not that different really but the so-called lost chick call of known tristis is fairly distinct and most reminiscent - to my ears - of the call given by a Mallard duckling when trying to catch up with the rest of the brood. Some western Chiffchaffs (incl. especially juv. collybitta) can certainly sound similar, though perhaps only temporarily. Interestingly most of the birds that I've heard giving the strangely none-Chiffchaff like sweeoo call have been of eastern type (though often greyish mantled with clear green tones on the rump so this might be largely confined to some abietinus.

I've never heard a known tristis (on range) give a call which sounded exactly like the pweep or hweep call I associate with western Chiffchaffs but until there is confirmation of exactly what happens either side of the Urals concerning calls I'm reluctant to assume that 'fulvescens' cannot given a western like call or that some birds from west of the Urals can't sound exactly like tristis on a regular basis.

I've probably seen something like 50 eastern-type Chiffchaffs in the UK, many of which have been calling and some of which have sounded exactly like tristis. Although I've never heard tritis like song in the UK other relaible observers certainly have. Despite this I'm not currently willing to assume that the birds sounding like tristis certainly were that form or that any of those with less tristis like voices were not from the east of the Urals.

In a nutshell, I don't know how to differntiate for certain between the most tristis like abietinus and 'true' tristis and I don't know anyone who does. Similarly, I suspect that some of the birds that seem to fall short of the requirements of tristis actually do come from well east of the Urals.

Better brains than mine have struggled with this for decades and drawn a blank. Only extensive fieldwork across the species range and a very thorough comparison of the results with museum material is like to allow further advances.

Spud